Agility World Championship 2023 is over and I took me some time to reflect on it properly and share a report with you. Here it is – a long one. 🙂

Background Story

Two years ago Pan started to limp suddenly (he had never limped before and is generally a super healthy and strong dog) and was diagnosed with a mild arthritis in a couple of his toes. Still, he was in great shape with strong musculature and I wasn’t ready to just give up. With a help of his physio team – yes, this dog has a whole team 🙃 – we found a way to control it, he won the tryouts, competed at the EO in Belgium and the AWC in Austria and then won quite some medals at smaller competitions. I thought that that had been it and was mentally prepared to retire him … then we entered Hungarian Open competition in February and once again great runs, great times … and boom 💣 Pan wins the finals! 🔥

He made it very clear he refused to be retired, so I had no choice but to accept it. 😁 Probably, it all sounds very easy. Dog has some problems, you take him to physio and he is as good as new. The reality isn’t quite like it. Besides physio, it also means zero off leash running, every move has to be done in a controlled manner, it means driving for a walk on the fields as the paths close to home are too rocky, it means retractable leash gets tangled around you and the trees hundred times a day, it means daily dog fitness exercises to keep the muscle tone and it also means extremely limited training on the obstacles – especially no weaves and contacts to avoid putting too much stress on the toe joints. So, these are few words how we prepared for the tryouts and got another chance to compete at EO and the AWC. AWC is by far my favourite competition, so I decided we won’t participate at the EO and save the energy for the green carpet.

We followed the plan – no uncontrolled moves, physio, fitness, warm-ups, cool-downs, some agility trainings for Pan and some sprints trainings for me 🙃 Of course I had to catch a cold right before the AWC and forcefully get some rest. 🙃 After more than a week of runny nose, sore throat, having no energy and grumpy mood, I was finally feeling better and ready to compete. I was like a little child waiting for Christmas, counting hours to be able to enter the ring. 😅

Yaaay, THE Arena!

Agility World Championship 2023

Finally, we arrived to the venue. Our arrival was followed by a typical procedure and an additional adrenaline boost:
➡️ vetcheck ✔️
➡️ almost getting a heart attack ✔️
➡️ training ✔️
➡️ photo in front of the arena ✔️

Right before the training Pan got hit by a car on the parking lot in front of the Arena. Like every normal person I was carrying a sh#%load of things in the Arena as one shouldn’t go back to the car twice. 🤌 Pan was tied to the famous retractable leash checking how many girls around were in heat (I concluded it had to be like half of the bitches competing 😅). I should have been more careful, I should have used a regular leash and I shouldn’t have to carry tons of things at once … but I did all of the mentioned and a lady that definitely should have driven slower on the parking lot and should have paid some more attention for sure didn’t do it on purpose. However, it was her decision not to ask if he was ok and to just drove off. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Accidents happen and luckily, we had our Jana there to check him immediately and to confirm he was ok. I took it as an omen to be grateful we were there and to enjoy every second of it. Things can change in a blink of an eye, and we easily forget to be grateful!

The Runs

Team Jumping

Finally! 🥳

We started with team jumping with Pan as the first starter on our team. I wouldn’t mind the extra pressure of the last competitor, but as mentioned above, all the bitches were in heat and that was the case for Slovenian team as well, so I wanted to literally stay as far away from them as possible and not having one right next to him. 😅

The course was ok, I personally felt quite confident about most of my solutions, just didn’t really like the weave entry (soft turn to the weaves after a spread jump) – that meant lots of control and deceleration after an obstacle that requires extension. I prefer challenges that test dog’s skills and handler’s accuracy rather than making it hard on their bodies.

The opening sequence required quite some handling precision – especially the turn after the second tunnel. Plenty of mistakes happened there – many dogs turned the wrong way at that jump and dogs even went off course taking the jump or the tunnel on the right. I knew I had to show the correct jump very clearly. If it had been individual run, I would have shaped the line a bit more (and therefore risk Pan going off course more) – so I decided to play it safe and not shape his line at all. Poor Pan obviously had no clue about what I was doing and turned the wrong way like so many other dogs. 😅 However, I was aware this might happen and was prepared to save the situation. 🦾😅

Great success! We almost made it to the end with a clean run, but then a stupid brick of the wall fell. 🤷🏻‍♀️ To make it clear … except for the weave entry, I liked the rest of the course – it offered plenty of handling possibilities and had a nice flow!

Team Agility

After our team wasn’t very lucky the previous day, I hoped this might be our day. The course wasn’t exactly my type. But I always try to teach my students to better start liking every course and look for possible solutions instead of complaining about the design of it. 😅🤌

I was worried about the speedy A-frame approach, the exit after the DW (dog had no obstacle to focus on right after it and that for sure isn’t our strength) and on top of that I couldn’t decide which line to take after the long jump. 🤔🤯 Turning the dog to the left seemed to have more flow and was only 1 meter longer plus assured a nicer/more speedy line to the following tunnel. On the other hand, the line when turning to the right was shorter and helped the dog to turn better after the tunnel. I watched some teams and many struggled with that exact turn after the tunnel – the plan was very soon clear – I am turning him to the right. 👉

My plan worked perfectly, I solved the speedy A-frame approach by being extra boring with my commands and Pan hit the DW contact. 👌 We ended with a nice clean run and placed 16th in individual ranking! Not bad for the AWC level! Unfortunately, we only had two clean runs, so no fancy result for our team.

Individual Jumping

The course was set by Alex Beitl and was my favourite course of this AWC, I loved every meter of it, it was super fast, it required precision all the way through it, it offered several handling solutions, but simply no handling errors. It was an all-in type of course, my favourite type! It was technical and speedy at the same time.

The lines for the dogs were very nice, but they could still be controlled by the handlers. It tested handling skills but was very logical for the dogs. In my opinion, it was exactly what individual jumping should look like – handlers pushing themselves without confusing the dogs or expecting the impossible from them! Pan had another foot perfect clean run, but there were lots of cleans, so it was a pleasant surprise we managed an awesome 14th place!!! 🥳

Individual Agility

Last run of the championship by Petra Vyplelova – very interesting course, fast, challenging – but nothing impossible, again lots of handling options. Judges this year did a really good job to test the skills, keep it interesting for the spectators and not killing the atmosphere!

This course was even more special – 2 times DW! Something we don’t see very often. 😅 Very fast approach to the first one and quite some collection required after it. Lots of dogs had a fault there for that reason. I decided for a handling option that gave the dog a very clear information about the jump after and to hit the contact at speed. The execution of the plan went smoothly – in the first half of the course… but then Pan missed the weave entry. This was something I really hadn’t expected as the weaves had always been Pan’s strong point. And then, a fault on the second DW happened as well – and a bar after that. At least all the mistakes accumulated in one run, haha. 😅🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️

With a clean run, we would have had quite a good chance for a medal, but as a friend of mine said ‘It is World championship, and no gifts are given here!’. And in this run we were light years away from a clean run.

Was I disappointed? Not at all! Given the circumstances, we both did our best – we did our best training wise, conditioning wise, Pan got the best physio care, best nutrition, supplements etc. … And that exactly was my goal – a goal that we achieved! Did we miss some luck? I don’t think so … we were lucky that the mistakes hadn’t distributed equally among the runs, and we would have been left with no cleans. We were lucky that the car hadn’t hit Pan in a way to prevent him competing (or worse!). We were lucky to be there! And on top of that, we also managed to show the world how a dog at nine years can compete at world class level and even get some great results! 🔥

It’s the longest post I have ever written, but as the era of my Black Panther has just ended, I had this need to get it all out of my system and celebrate with all of you who are crazy enough to read it all that it has happened! 🫶

Congrats to all the winners, you all really deserve your titles!