Aloha Hawaii!
It is my pleasure to be your Judge this weekend! I was last in your State back in 1975 and am looking forward to my return visit……it has been way too long!
I got into dog agility back in 1999 after getting my first Papillon, Solo. At that time, my wife Cindy and I were in Southern California, and classes and trials were easy to come by. Solo wasn’t really into the sport that much, so in 2002 I got my second Papillon, Sheena. Sheena was a real speedball, and while we struggled a little at first, we eventually found our groove and eventually ended up at the AKC Agility Invitational in 2010 as #1 Papillon team (after trialing 52 weekends straight to get there!). Sheena ended up with 8 MACH’s before her retirement in 2014, along with 6 visits to the National Agility Championship. I was also able to get MACH5 on Nike, one of Sheena’s daughters.
In 2010 Cindy and I both retired from our jobs and moved to Grand Junction, Colorado. There wasn’t a lot of dog agility there at the time, so I decided to change that and built K9 Powersports Dog Agility Training, the only indoor (important in Colorado!) training facility between Denver and Salt Lake City. Business has been quite good, and I am going into my 12th year in the dog agility training business.
After being in the Colorado dog agility community for a few years, A few of the Colorado agility judges convinced me to take the AKC Agility Judge seminar, and in 2014 I passed the exam, and have been bouncing back and forth all over the country judging trials since then. It is lots of fun, and I enjoy meeting people and their dogs in places I might never have gone to otherwise!
Somehow, in addition to teaching agility during the week and judging on weekends, I still find time to run my current Papillons, Keiji and Trebuchet, on non-judging weekends. Keiji (the red/white dog in the picture) is now 11 and he is as crazy as ever. Clipper, the black/white dog in the photo, is now retired with MACH 4 and had to quit when he tore his ACL. Trebuchet is now 4 years old, very fast and attentive……I have big expectations from her! I bred Keiji and Trebuchet last year and now have a 1-year-old pup named Scorch who is a real hoot to train!
Anyway, good luck to everyone this weekend, and above all else have fun with your dog!