The first ASTC national specialty agility trial was held in the St. Louis area in 2002, at Purina Farms in Gray Summit, Missouri. Twenty-two dogs participated in the one day, outdoor event and three of those dogs earned qualifying scores: Katie Grant-Shalin’s “Zoe” who earned a “double-Q” from the Excellent B Standard and Jumpers with Weaves classes and was the High Scoring 8” Shih Tzu; Linda Harpers “Niki” who earned a “Q” from Excellent B Jumpers with Weaves and was the high Scoring 12” Shih Tzu; and Alberta Gray’s “Hairy” who earned a “Q” from the Open Standard Class.
The classes that were offered in 2002 were Standard and Jumpers with Weaves (FAST and T2B classes were not yet in existence), and the dogs jumped at either 8” or 12” – because at the time, there was a lower cutoff for the 8” division (had to be under 10” inches tall to jump 8”; today the cutoff is 11”). There was no Preferred class, so there was not an option to enter a dog a 4” like there is today.
At that time, the thought of a Shih Tzu earning a MACH was unheard of (there weren't any at that time) and the preferred classes didn't even exist yet. Oh, how times have changed … look how far we've come. There are many Shih Tzu with MACH titles (several with multiple MACH titles), a couple with PACH titles, and several Shih Tzu who are consistently earning points and “Q”s with those titles in mind.
(Article adapted from a Shih Tzu bulletin article written by Barb Cunningham in 2010)
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