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Handler (Dianne Reid) and her Border Collie, Ace who are members of the Upper Hutt Dog Training Club, won the Open agility title at the Australian national champs. Pretty historical. I have arranged the Mayor of Upper Hutt to give the five members of the Upper Hutt DTC and their dogs who were part of the 11-persons/13 dogs NZ Paws Black team a mayoral reception.
Agility in Australia is not much stronger number wise than is NZ despite having nearly six times the human population. At the Australian nationals there were 150 entries in the Masters event - at the NZ equivalent event (seniors) at our national champs, we had 220 entries. Australia does not have many dogs that are of the smaller breeds, competing in agility and like here there is a discouragement because they don't have separate competitions for the various sizes of dogs.
You can bet that next year there will be a NZ presence at the Australian champs in Melbourne despite the substantial costs.
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