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Sheri Walsh

Sheri Walsh

“I was never a dog person until I got my first dog,” Shonda Oderkirk said.

Her Chesapeake Bay retriever, Mocha, was one of nine puppies rescued from a Dumpster at a local weigh station in August 2001.

At only 10 days old, the puppies needed to be bottle-fed and nursed back to health, and Oderkirk volunteered to help. In between late night feedings and bath time, she bonded with Mocha and ended up adopting her.

“I didn’t even want a dog,” she said. “But I instantly liked Mocha.”

After seeing an agility event on ESPN one day, Oderkirk decided that she wanted to train her puppy to compete.

Dog agility is a sport where dogs run, jump and weave their way through an obstacle course while judges score them on their time and accuracy. Handlers try to lead the dogs through the obstacles in a certain predetermined order using only their voice, body signals and movement to guide the animals. The goal is to complete the course in the shortest amount of time with the fewest faults.

“I started training on my own,” Oderkirk said, “And then one day, about five years ago, I signed up to take a class at the Tanana Valley Kennel Club.”

The rest, as they say, is history.

The pair has risen to the highest level of agility competition and Mocha is now working to earn the American Kennel Club’s most prestigious honor, a Master Agility Championship title.

This weekend, Oderkirk and Mocha will join roughly 130 other dogs and their handlers from around the state at the Tanana Valley fairgrounds to compete in TVKC’s annual Agility Trials.

Standard courses feature obstacles like ramps, see-saws, pause tables, weave poles, open and closed tunnels and a variety of jumps, while the JWW course consists mainly of jumps and weaves.

Polly Divens, TVKC’s agility class coordinator, explained that the JWW course allows teams to showcase a dog’s speed and jumping ability by removing most of the contact obstacles that require precision and control. While an excellent dog could run a standard course in roughly 50-60 seconds, she said, the JWW course would take around 30.

This weekend’s trial will also include a Fifteen and Send Time course. FAST is more of a freestyle event where there is no set sequence for completing the obstacles. Instead, each is assigned a point value and the handler must decide which obstacles to hit in order to reach an allotted number of points in the shortest time.

Teams can compete at the Novice, Open, or Excellent level for each event, depending on their experience, and are separated in to six classes based on the dogs’ height at their withers (shoulders).

Handlers are allowed to walk the pattern and get a feel for the course before attempting it with their dogs.

“Each course is different,” Smith said. “The handlers show up and are given the pattern the morning of the competition.”

Teams start the course with 100 points and are docked for each mistake, or fault, that is made.

If a team makes it through the event with enough points intact (between 85 and 100 depending on the level), they earn a qualifying time, or a leg. Once a team has earned three legs, it receives a title and can move on to compete at the next level.

According to Divens, a good deal of training is required to prepare a dog to compete in an agility trial. In addition to general obedience and knowledge of basic commands, she said handlers should familiarize the dogs with the various obstacles to ensure their safety and comfort. The handlers, she said, must also learn to effectively guide the dogs through the course.

People interested in competing in agility events can attend one of TVKC’s 8-week-long agility courses, held in the spring and fall for teams of all experience levels.

Those who can’t make it to Fairbanks to train can take classes through other clubs and organizations throughout the country or build their own equipment to practice from home like Donna Gates King, wife of Iditarod Champion Jeff King.

“I train by myself and I have equipment here (in Denali),” she said. “Sometimes when I fly Outside for competitions, I take classes from a trainer out there if I can get in a class.”

King said her two border collies, Peg and QC, and retriever, Liza, have all reached the excellent level of competition, so now she is focusing on qualifying for the 2009 AKC National Agility Championships.

“I like competing because I like to see how well I’ve trained the dogs,” she said. “It’s active and it’s exacting and it’s fast. The dogs love doing the obstacles and running along with you.”

While bonding with the dogs is a motivating factor, the handlers said they also enjoy the competitive nature of agility events.

“I like to win,” Divens said. “I like to challenge myself and accomplish something with the dogs.”

According to Oderkirk, there is also a social aspect, as handlers often travel, train and compete together.

“All of my closest friends are from agility,” she said. “Even though you are competing with one another, people here are so supportive — they celebrate with you when you do well and commiserate when you do poorly.”