Tonight the top canine athletes from across the country have descended upon
New York City ready to go nose-to-nose for a title in a competition that'll be
fast, fierce and furry.
I'm Perry DeWitt. I am from Wyncote, Pennsylvania
and I do agility with my dog Verb.
I'm Jessica Ajoux and I also do agility with my dog Fame(us).
Dog agility is a dog sport that consists of an obstacle course that the handler
and the dog try to negotiate through as fast as possible with the fewest mistakes.
There's jumps and in the course there's tunnels
that the dogs have to go through ... There's a dog walk which is a big
three-part ramp that they have to go over, there's an a-frame which is a
steeper ramp that they have to climb up and then down,
a teeter-totter and the weave poles that they have to weave through,
entering in a specific way and exiting in a specific way
and there's a tire jump and a couple other jumps …
– Speciality jumps, yeah.
Sometimes you know it right away.
I went to visit him at his breeder when he was five weeks old
and I had my eye on a completely different puppy in the litter
and I didn't even … I was not even considering him.
I got there and he was 5 weeks old and in, I kid you not,
30 seconds I knew I needed that dog.
Wave.
Good! Be shy.
Be shy! Good.
Sit!
Sit up!
I think what matters the most is how a dog and a team responds to pressure
so you can be the best in the world in your backyard or even in class
but you have to be able to take the crowd,
you have to be able to take the pressure of being in a final run
and manage your emotions and the dog has to be able to manage theirs too.
– You have to do it on the day it counts.
For me this year is going to be … I think a little emotional too because
I'm at the end of Fame's career. That's …
That's a little bit sad too but we're gonna go, try to make the best of it and probably
have an extremely Fame(us) moment of really good or one thing that just combusts
but 99 things can go right and that one thing that goes wrong,
that's it, it's not gonna happen.
You think we should make it ascending or parallel?
So because they are pretty trained dogs,
we don't really need to do too much, like, extra.
So we're just trying to run a course that to the best of my abilities
might predict some of the things that we'll be seeing this weekend.
I'm feeling a little nervous about the weekend and that tends to always come with
the big events because, like, there's just this level of unpredictability with dog agility
and because you can only control so much, you never feel … I never, at least
personally, feel 100% confident that it's gonna go well because it doesn't matter
if I do my absolute best, he could be having a bad day.
Are you the best dog in the world? Yeah, you're the best dog ever.
Sold out for a week here at Pier 94, the stands are packed and we are ready for
competition to begin.
Hello everybody and welcome!
Alongside Terry Simons today with two decades experience in this sport …
Make sure all his little toes are cracked.
– Go!
She's going to make the finals.
We're trying to keep both of us calm and reminding myself to stay connected with her
which means to look at her eyes and gauge what she's thinking in the moment,
especially in the part after the a-frame because it's just very hard to predict what
they're gonna do.
– Go!
Damnit! It sucks.
She hit that bar and she probably could've still made it with the bar because the dog is damn fast,
faster than everyone else, but …
But she had two faults.
She probably won't make it.
This is why this sport is so addicting and so difficult at the same time
because it can go really, really right and then you're still out there trying your best
and they're really trying as well and, I mean, I probably have to go back and look at the video
to really, like, figure out why the bar in the first place fell down
and I'm sure that the refusal was just because
then I was not paying attention as much as I should have been because I was
already in like, hurried-up mode.
Oh, well, I hope Perry kills it now.
What makes it difficult is that we both really care about it a lot,
we both really care about each other and so it's difficult because when you
do really well, you're happy but you're also feeling sad that the other one
didn't do as well …
– And if I've not done well, I want to be a little bit sad
and I want her to comfort me but why should I be taking away from her excitement win?
And it's not that I don't, you know, it's just …
– It's just weird. Balancing it, it's super hard.
It's hard, it's hard.
'This course is gonna have a quick fast start as I believe it's the last half of this course
where everything will be won or lost.'
'This is going to be fast, challenging and more importantly, this is going to be fun.'
'I can't wait.'
I'm excited. I actually like the course,
it has a couple of Verb's strong suits
But the ending of the course is a little bit tricky, they have you kind of trapped
where the dog is going to come out of the last tunnel, seeing the wrong obstacle
so you have to make sure that you're in the right place really connecting
to make sure that you can say, 'hey, it's not the one you're thinking,
come over this way.'
Just gonna go for it.
It's just agility after all.
1.27. … is 1.27.
That's crazy.
'And the last dog in the 20 inch division is Verb, the border collie, and Perry DeWitt
from Wyncote, Pennsylvania.'
'Not just the defending champion in this class,
the defending overall grand champion of the Masters Agility Championship.'
'Let's see if Verb can win back-to-back titles.'
'Look at that focus.'
'Come on mum, tell me what to do. Tell me what to do.'
'Here we go!'
'Very nice turns here! Look at that!'
'Look at those paws, look at those paws!'
'She just took her eye off, just for a split second.'
'So we will have a new champion … Lili Ann is taking the 20 inch class.'
How did he do that?
Because he's …
Oh, he went off course at the last jump.
That's heartbreaking. Nice run, though. – Thank you.