About 165 canines cavort at Danville Kennel Club’s agility trials

About 165 dogs strutted — and ran and jumped and wove — their stuff Saturday during Danville Kennel Club’s agility trials at Averett Equestrian Center in Providence, N.C.

Paige Wiseman, the agility trial chairperson for the kennel club, said the dogs compete on two courses.

The first is a standard course, with many jumps and weaves — a series of upright poles the dogs must twist their bodies through — as well as contact equipment like seesaws and a bridge-like apparatus they climb.

The second course eliminates the contact equipment and has just jumps and weaves.

The dogs are divided by size and skill level for the competition, though Wiseman said the dogs “are really competing with the course, not with each other.”

Novices are the greenest, youngest dogs, Wiseman said. They get a little more time to run the courses and are allowed a few mistakes; however, a dropped bar on a jump disqualifies dogs at any level.

The “open” class is for the intermediate dogs, which are allowed two mistakes in their runs.

The “excellent” class is for the most experienced dogs, and they are allowed no slips.

“They have to be perfect in the time allowed,” Wiseman said.

The courses are set up with a series of numbered jumps and other challenges that the dogs must run in perfect order. Their handlers get eight minutes to walk the course before competition begins, but the dogs don’t get any test runs; the first time the dogs see the course is the first time they run it, following signals from their handlers.

The competition is good exercise for both the dogs and their handlers, Wiseman said — and watching owners and their dogs stretch before the competition confirmed the concern for the animals’ well-being.

“All the training at Danville Kennel Club uses positive training methods,” Wiseman said. “Agility is all about training and fun and bonding with the dog in a fun and positive manner.”

Member Nancy Akers agreed that the training helped form a strong bond between owner and dog.

“To learn agility, dogs have to learn focus and the skills. It takes a good relationship and trust between the two of you,” Akers said. “That’s why people who do agility love it: It’s about the relationship with the dog.”

Any dog of any size and any breed — purebred or mixed — can take agility training at the kennel club, as well as some other classes, including obedience.

“A lot of the people here do tracking, herding, obedience; we’re multi-tasking with our dogs,” Wiseman said.

For information on agility training with Danville Kennel Club, e-mail wiseman at . For information on other classes, call the kennel club’s secretary, Mary Alice Owen, at (434) 432-0517.

The kennel club’s final day of agility trials will take place today from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Averett University Equestrian Center in Providence, N.C. The event is free and open to the public, but dogs that are not entered in the competition are not allowed on site.

• Contact Denice Thibodeau at or (434) 791-7985.