Beauty & Brains

This article was originally published in Showsight Magazine, August 2013 issue.

Beauty & Brains

“Yes, Virginia, there are Shih Tzu competing in Agility. They exist as certainly as love and patience and devotion exist, and you know that theAgility Shih Tzu are few and give to our Agility trials its highest dimension, beauty, and joy. Shih Tzu do compete in Agility, and the numbers are slowly growing. They compete in many venues and at many levels. Years ago, I had just started competing with one of my Shih Tzu, “Cain,” and while waiting to go to the starting line, an AKC World Team member told me that Shih Tzu can’t do Agility and I was wasting my time! Cain and I competed in AKC Agility, and he did very well. The bond one develops when training and competing in Agility is extreme as handler and dog become a well-oiled machine out on the course.

Cain, while not extremely fast, was extremely true, so I always knew exactly what he was going to do and when he was going to do it. During the ‘walk-throughs’ (where one walks and memorizes the course before competition begins), I must have looked like a music director directing ‘Hall of the Mountain King’ as I walked the course, memorizing its twists and turns, my arms moving to where I wanted Cain to go as only I knew he would. As we worked our way through the levels of AKC Agility, I soon discovered that another Agility venue, CPE Agility, hadn’t had a Shih Tzu Agility Champion yet—I’m sure you can see where this story is going—yes, in July of 2010, Cain became the first Agility Champion Shih Tzu in CPE Agility. We also competed at their National competition two years in a row, and each year Cain earned High in Standard and 1st in Games in his height division. (And yes, we were the only Shih Tzu there.)”