M y dog has more extracurriculars than your honor student

BY: KATIE ROMIG

Guest contributor

Everyone has their hobbies, right? My aunt recently took up volleyball, my boss enjoys off-road biking on her days off, and I spend all my money and free time competing with my dog.

Jay is an 18-month-old Duck Toller, and before you ask, yes, that's a real breed! Tollers look like small golden retrievers with the brains & energy of a border collie. He's a ball of sunshine and teeth wrapped in a red coat and he's my absolute best friend.

There are a lot of reasons to train a dog and most of them have an end goal — training to have manners, to not jump on people, to be a service dog, to get a title. Once the goal has been reached, you stop training or you just train to maintain the behavior. But for me, and most of my fellow crazy dog sport people, the training is the fun part!

I don't train to compete, I compete because I train.

Jay and I train for agility, rally and obedience, as well as dabbling in dock diving and hunt training. We aren't quite ready for the competition ring in obedience yet — that's a 2020 goal — but have intro titles for rally and agility. Competing gives me a goal to work toward, standards to hold my training to and bragging rights once we finally put all the pieces together. There's just something exhilarating about stepping into a competition ring with my dog and a leash, knowing that all our hard work is about to pay off.

And it is hard work! There are a million ways to train a dog, but I always strive to make it fun for both ends of the leash. Jay learns and performs best when he is happy above all else, so I do everything I can to keep him playing my silly games. As much fun as I am, I know there are always other things to sniff, dogs to play with, people to greet and a million other things that are more enticing than sitting perfectly still at my side. Agility is more inherently fun for him than obedience, but it brings its own challenges — no, not that tunnel, you need to be on the other side of this jump and stop barking at me!

You've probably seen dogs running agility before — it's the obstacle course that they show after Westminster, and Gabby the papillon's run there went viral this year. You may be less familiar with obedience, which is just what it sounds like. Obedience was the first-ever dog sport and involves exercises like heeling, distance position changes, retrieves over the high jump and handler scent discrimination.

Want an extra challenge? You're only allowed to give your dog each cue once, with judges take points off for talking to your dog after that. No "good job," no "hurry up," no talking, period. Jay does okay without encouragement, the hard part is reminding myself to shut up! Rally has many of the same exercises as obedience, with some different rules. It's a heeling-based sport that involves following a numbered "course" made up of different signs that tell you what to do, like call your dog to front, return to heel, about turn, etc. Rally tends to be more fun to compete in, but obedience is where your training is really put to the test.

If any of this sounds like your idea of a good time, I highly encourage getting involved! Go watch a trial, volunteer and spend some time talking to the people there. Watch the dogs, but watch the handlers — who looks confident in their dog's training? Who looks happy to be there? Seek those people out and find out where they train! If it seems like you don't have anything in common with the people there, remember that we're all in it for the love of dogs.

To any aspiring competitors, I want to pass on some wise words from the judge at my first agility trial — "Good luck, and remember there's a fine line between a hobby and a mental illness. Most of us crossed it long ago."

With 22,000 events held each year, there's a dog sport for every dog — and every owner, the AKC website details. Whether you want to just want to watch or actually participate, it's easy to find an event. Visit akc.org/sports/events for more information.