Karen - Bossy, Tazz and Frodo

After watching the agility events at Olympia on the telly back in the late 70's/early 80's (whenever it started up), I thought that is what I would like to do when I get a dog of my own. However, when I got my first dog, Kelly, there was only agility for large dogs and she was a small. With my second dog, Jaga, who was a mini, I did a lot of obedience, which she got bored with, and so started to do agility as soon as I found a local agility club. That was it, life has never been the same since!

Bossy

In 1996, my dream puppy was born, Bossy, a JR X and even at the age of 14 she lives up to her name.
She was, and still is, hard work and very, very fast. She was a top jumping dog, winning many trophies but unfortunately her contacts were non-existent - always flying off them! She is now semi-retired but still enjoying agility and still getting clear rounds in the veteran classes.

Tazz

Tazz came to me at 15 months' old and was supposed to have gone to collie people but no-one wanted him so I ended up keeping him myself.

I thought I'd give running a collie a go, even though it was not really my cup of tea. He had problems but he taught me so much and I got the experience of running in standard classes - very different from running small dogs!

Tazz did make a dream come true for me; we qualified for the Adams Derby Final in 2007 and in the final we did better than I had ever expected we would. We came 7th.

Tazz is now semi-retired but since working on the lower height he is a lot happier and it's like starting all over again.

Frodo

Frodo is a JR and is my first 'proper' agility dog as he gets all the contacts! Unfortunately he is not a speed merchant like the other two. He is nice and steady and consistent and he gets many clear rounds.

Just after his first birthday, he became very poorly as he had developed pancreatitis. Once it was under control, he was fine but is now on a very strict diet.

He has been hard work, as he doesn't enjoy straight-forward courses. I nearly gave up with him because we weren't getting anywhere but after trying him in the trainers' class, he has improved vastly and loves to work on the difficult courses that are set up in training. This has finally put him up into Grade 4.