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My girl, Keeper, and I recently competed at the UKI Canadian Nationals and WAO Team Canada Tryouts in Saint John, New Brunswick, September 7th - 10th. I packed up my RV and my five pups, and we went on an almost 3,000 km roundtrip road trip to make it to the Nationals.  Keeper, a three-year-old sheltie, competed at her first-ever National event with over 450 dogs participating! Talk about a milestone for her!
It was an agility marathon over four packed days, and Keeper proved that she could compete with some of the best 12" dogs in the country! Many American friends also came up to compete and pushed the competition and course times with their border paps and sport mixes! It was also great to see two of my fellow MCR team members compete - Stacy and Ainsley. Several of my elite coaching students from the United States also attended and had outstanding weekends with their dogs. This was the definition of an international competition with some of the best handlers and teams from Canada and the U.S. I am so proud of how Keeper handled the environment, the competition and her ability to stay focused and connected (mostly!). She also proved that she can keep times with some of the fastest dogs in Canada and the U.S. We were able to pull off multiple top 10 place finishes and ended up placing 2nd in Canada for the Games event. Here are a few of my favourite runs during the UKI Canadian Nationals:
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“Knowledge isn’t power. Applied knowledge is power.” This is a powerful quote by American motivational speaker Eric Thomas, and I couldn’t agree with it more. In last week’s blog, the first of this two-part series, I talked about common, general signs of pain in our dogs and specific pain signs in agility dogs. When we understand our dog’s standard movement patterns, we can start to detect deviations from them. So, now that we know how to recognize these signs in part one (you can read it here), we will dive into what YOU can do as a dog owner to detect these subtle signs of injury SOONER in your agility dog. Let's dive into my top 5 tips:What if I told you that many of the canine athletes I assess at my rehab clinic started showing minor, subtle signs of their injury MONTHS before ever booking an appointment with me?
Could you recognize these signs with 100% confidence? I wrote this blog to help owners, trainers, and health professionals identify the subtle signs of pain in agility dogs so that injuries, compensation patterns, side preferences, and weaknesses can be identified earlier. With over 15 years of practice as a physiotherapist, one cornerstone of my approach is educating and proactively managing human and dog health care. When injured dogs come into my clinic, and I review the history with the owners, there are generally many signs that start to show up weeks and even months before the owner notices that something is “off” with their dog and an injury is brewing. Let’s dive into the WHY. |
AuthorCarolyn McIntyre Archives
May 2025
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