Agility Team Canada has just wrapped up a week of team events in Ontario. The week started with a management team meeting on Tuesday June 21. The management team gets one face to face meeting per year and the rest of the year we work long distance to run the day to day business of the team. Having a face to face meeting is a great way to build energy for the year.

Wednesday and Thursday were Team meetings and team practice. I’d like to give a special thank you to John Cullen, for coming out and working on our team building Wednesday morning. Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning were filled with the team working on their handling skills in preparation for the FCI event. 

Thank you to Linda Barton and Deryl Drysdale for sponsoring the team lunch both days! Thank you also to Lynda Orton-Hill, Jenni Shelegy and Delyth Marsh for coming out to the team practice and helping out! And of course special thanks to Susan Garrett and John Blenkey for allowing the team to have these events at the beautiful Say Yes Dog Training facility. Thank you also to Lisa Kangas for coming out to team practice and working her magic on both the people and the dogs!

On Friday we held an agility fun match team fundraiser at Royackers Kennels. Thank you to Deryl Drysdale, Linda Barton and Adrian Rooyakkers for organizing and running this event. Thank you to everyone who attended this event in support of the team!

Following the fun match we held our annual fundraiser trial again at the gorgeous Royackers Kennels. Every time I go to this facility I am reminded of how lucky Ontario is to have such an amazing place to trial. As a competitor you couldn't ask for a more perfect agility experience. Thank you again Susan and Adrian for allowing the team to hold our event at this one of a kind facility.

We wouldn't have been able to hold our fundraiser trial without the help of many, many people. First, thank you to Belleville and District Kennel Club for hosting the trial on behalf of the team. All of the proceeds from this event go directly to the team. Thank you to Patricia Hunt for being our gatekeeper extraordinaire, Holly, Dave, Kathy, Linda and Deryl for the amazing lunches and raffle table. Thanks to Gord and Brenda Sutherland from the Belleville Club for all their help with ribbons, gate keeping and ring crew, and Sandra Esford for chairing and stepping in as our 2nd judge at the last minute. To Chris Spencer for being chief course builder all weekend. To Carol Smorch for her continued support of the team, judging and working at the trial. To Gail Giles (for her patience during the postal strike) being our trial secretary and also for scorekeeping all weekend. Also, a big thanks to our very own Dr.Leslie Woodcock, for popping out to the trial to work on the dogs during the event. .We are very lucky to have her as our team vet!!

Thank you to Vince Maidens for coming out and taking pictures all weekend, you can see his photos on his web site at www.vincemaidensphotography.com, also thanks to Laura and Deryl for all the great candid shots they got as well. Can't wait to see the gnome shots!

Thank you to all the competitors who attended this trial in support of the team. We know you have many choices for trials on any given weekend in Ontario and appreciate your choice of our fundraiser trial. This team would not be able to be the best it can without then continued support of our Canadian agility competitors.

I would like to take a moment to thank all of the Ontario team members and supporters of this team who opened their homes to those team members who had to travel across the country or just across Ontario to attend these events. Thank you to Deryl Drysdale for looking after Nicki Gurr and Ninja all week, to Linda Barton who hosted our judge Carol Smorch and to Susan Garrett and John Blenkey who not only hosted the whole team for 2 days during practice but looked after myself and my dog and also fellow team member Teri O'Neil and her two dogs for 5 days! Also past team member Lynda Orton-Hill for letting me stay in her RV while at team events! Thank you also to Mary De Carolis for housing Chris and Sandra for the time of the practice and trial. All of these people went way above and beyond for their team, re arranging very busy lives in the middle of a busy trial season to be able to attend and support team events as well as make sure the out -of- town folks saved some pennies on hotels and car rentals. Support like this is what the word "team" is all about and I personally can't thank these people enough for all the grocery store trips, dinners, transportation to the trial and back again, especially to John Blenkey who rearranged his travel plans for the weekend to drive all the way out to Royackers and back on Saturday so that Teri could catch a flight home for Sunday morning. People like these folks make me proud of our agility community and our team.

And lastly thank you to all the management team and the competition team members for their continued hard work during a very busy week!

Lots of things still to do like our team e book which should be available next week. This e book is filled with a variety of things from treat recipes to articles on conditioning and rehab for your agility dog's as well as lots of courses and drills to keep you busy and challenge you to be the world class agility handler you are!

So thank you once again to everyone who has supported this team over the years. We can't do this without you! And keeping Canada represented at the largest agility world championships in the world is a must if we want to have the benefit of continual growth and improvement of our sport. Yes it is expensive to attend this event each year but the return is priceless. Team members return to Canada and inspire their agility community to keep up to date with handling trends, new training methods, new equipment designs and course design as well as taking the sport to a new level each time they attend a local trial. Coming home with a couple of gold medals last year was pretty nice too! We plan to go back and do that again!

Kim Collins
CKC Agility Team Canada Captain/Coach 2010/2011