Agility Video Service is extremely happy to annouce that we will be providing complete coverage of the AKC / USA Dog Agility World Team Tryouts on May 2-4, 2008 being held in Hopkins, Minnesota. Approximately half of the gross reciepts will be going directly to support the team.

Tomorrow I’m off early to Buffalo, NY. I wanted to take a moment to share with you at least one of the courses we’ll be running.

This isn’t a terribly technical standard course. I suppose that I can get away with forward publishing of a course I’ll be judging only in the TDAA. I wouldn’t dream of doing so in another venue. Not many people will go out to set up equipment to practice an upcoming course riddle. Maybe my confidence in the fundamental honesty of people is misplaced.

At the TDAA Petit Prix reception I was honored by my peers, given a nice plaque and had conferred upon me a lifetime membership to the organization. My grandma would certainly approve that it has a monetary value! They made me make a little speech for which I was in no ways prepared. I find the whole thing a little humbling because I try hard enough out in the world to be just “one of the guys”. The truth of it all is, though I started the TDAA, the real champions are the small dog people out there that recognized that there is a venue that is designed specifically for them—and not for Border Collies—and oh by the way they’ll take your money anyhow. It’s tough times to be a champion of anything in dog sports because of the mindless regard the world gives to the AKC and the funny notion that when they get an AKC title they’ve really done something.

We’re undergoing a transformation in our sport that will have important consequences to exhibitors, agility organizations, training clubs, and training service providers… the semi-pro//recreational schism. I see the break in the community very clearly. The seed of the transformation was planted pretty much as the sport began in this country. But for the longest time the vast majority of our numbers came from the family dog of any breed with an emphasis on the recreational benefit of playing the game.

The objective of the Fifteen and Send Time class is to perform all or as many of the obstacles as possible, w