The sport of dog agility may be relatively new in the United States, but it offers all the excitement expected in a competitive sport: it’s fast-paced, challenging, and requires participants to exhibit serious skill as they race against the clock. Making the niche sport even better is it’s all about spending time with your favorite four-legged friends. Nearly 70 million households in the U.S. have at least one dog, meaning dog agility is an activity with a large potential audience.
“Dog agility is a way to have fun and provide exercise for your dog at the same time,” says Ken Tatsch, founder of the United States Dog Agility Association (USDAA), the organization responsible for first introducing the sport to America. Tatsch first learned of the sport while on a visit to England in 1985. While attending a dog show, he was fascinated by a dog agility competition.
“At the time, I was the director of obedience training, and I thought it was a great purpose to obedience besides just having the dog do what I ask it to,” he explains. “I came home and told our local club about it, we built some obstacles, and one thing led to another.”
At first, the club hosted weekly dog agility practice sessions, but they soon began holding exhibitions. These proved popular, and just two years later they established the USDAA, an organization dedicated to promoting the sport of dog agility as a recreational, family sport
for fostering responsible pet ownership. USDAA has grown significantly over the past 30-plus years, with groups located all over the country, as well as affiliations around the world.
While the organization licenses competitions hosted by third parties, the organization itself hosts four major tournaments each year to bring the best
of the best together from around the world. These competitions include: the flagship event, Cynosport World Games, which is a grand prix of dog agility that utilizes all of the typical obstacles; dog agility steeple chase; Dog Agility Masters Team, which allows groups to pair up to compete in teams of two or three; and the biathlon which combines some of the various techniques into one agility course.
“These events have attracted as many as 15 countries,” Tatsch shared. “Then COVID-19 hit. We’re working to get the numbers back up.”
The pandemic hit participation in the USDAA events rather hard. One of the hardest hits was the extended time dogs were unable to compete, eventually having many dogs age out of participation.
“It was upwards of nine months before groups starting hosting events again, with some taking even longer, and many dogs that had been active aged out of their ability to complete physical activities of this nature,” Tatsch says.
“It definitely has been a rebuilding process as some handlers were left wondering if they stop or get another dog in order to continue competing.”
In the meantime, the organization has been making a serious effort to help encourage the sport’s rebuilding process. During the pandemic, when travel was practically nonexistent, the organization spent time standardizing its regulations and obstacles so that participants would experience more consistency from event to event.
“More formalized standards also make finding the right venue for hosting easier if the obstacles being used are standardized,” Tatsch added.
A significant addition to USDAA programming because of the pandemic is a virtual option for competition.
“We started out offering a virtual platform for people to compete at home just so they could stay active with their dogs,” Tatsch says “It proved to be very popular and have continued with it, and it has evolved since.”
The USDAA At Home Program is accessible through the organization’s website, and it includes courses participants can set up at home, run, and record so to post their performances online to be judged. The judges will even provide feedback on the performances in the virtual setting.
“It’s a great way to introduce people to the sport who don’t have ready access, and it eases people in because it doesn’t have the pressure of head-to-head competition like you have at a live event,” Tatsch said. “At the same time, it gives people a chance to train their dogs, refine elements of their training, and have some fun. We’ve added some people to our programming because of this program.”
Thankfully, the pandemic hasn’t kept the popularity of the sport down: it has been showing signs of coming back since late 2021. “It’s very much a niche sport, but it’s coming back,” Tatsch says. “We have been seeing increased registrations throughout the year, and we expect it
to continue going forward.”
Some of the very top dogs, at least in the USDAA, are those that were presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award, which is earned throughout a handler’s career with the specific dog. The top three award winners are all border collies—Ares (with handler Stuart Mah), Charlie (with handler Wendy Crawshaw), and Maddie (with handler Katrina Parkinson).
Despite popularity gaining new ground since the pandemic, one challenge has continued: travel. USDAA has seen a reduction in participants willing to travel as far since the pandemic, which has only grown worse due to recent economic conditions such as inflation.
“Inflation has hit people hard, and the cost to travel is so expensive,” Tatsch explains. “We’ve definitely seen a big drop in that from pre-pandemic.”
To offset that challenge, the USDAA has shifted to offer more localized programming, encouraging more smaller local shows rather than large regional shows which require people to travel further distances.
“We’re cutting costs where we can,” Tatsch adds. “At the same time, we’re preserving the most important thing about the sport, which is spending time with your dog.”
The American Kennel Club (AKC) has more than 4,000 events per year—with over one million entries per year—within its licensed clubs, and the organization has been seeking to find ways to grow accessibility to the sport while limiting the travel time for its participants as well.
“We’re always looking to increase the interest in our sport,” says Carrie DeYoung, director of agility for AKC. “Last year we added around 120 new events for competition, making it easy for people to compete on a more local level.”
Thus far, AKC has seen interest in the sport come back to pre-pandemic levels, with more new-to-the-sport dogs and handlers registering over the past year.
Televising AKC events has been one way the organization has worked on increasing interest in the sport with new participants. One example was the Agility Invitational, an event showcasing the top five dogs in each breed, which was televised on Christmas Day last year.
“Televised events are always a plus,” DeYoung says. “It’s a great way for people to see the fun of the sport.”
The fun of the sport, as DeYoung hopes spectators see at AKC events, is the way dog agility rooted in a sincere partnership between a dog and its owner.
“Dog agility is all about a partnership with your dog,” DeYoung says. “Watching your dog enjoy it and training them to do it is fun. There’s no better way to build a bond with your dog.”
