2004 Agility Trial - Bring Your Heart to San Francisco

The 2004 agility trial was held in Burlingame, California - just outside of the host hotel.  The setting was beautiful, but the Bay breeze proved to be a tough challenge!

Judge Kathie Leggett gave an agility handling seminar after the second day of the trial.

The winners were:

2004—4th Agility Trial—Burlingame, California

High Scoring Novice Regular - Ruff N Tumble Barkley Parko—G. Parko

High Scoring Open Regular - [NO QUALIFIERS]

High Scoring Excellent A Regular - [NO QUALIFIERS]

High Scoring Excellent B Regular - Olive’s Grove Phineas Finn—P. Shea-Zackin

2004—5th Agility Trial—Burlingame, California

High Scoring Novice Regular - Ruff N Tumble Barkley Parko—G. Parko

High Scoring Open Regular - Seafal Anna Banana—B. Cunningham

High Scoring Excellent A Regular - Sue’s Little Firefly—S. Dowell

High Scoring Excellent B Regular - Olive’s Grove Phineas Finn—P. Shea-Zackin

2003 Agility Trial - "Get the Party Started"

The 2003 agility trial was held in Lake Elmo, Minnesota.  This two day, outdoor trial was met with its own trials ... pouring rain and freezing cold!

Michele and Claudia work as ring crew in the rain.

Photo by Tien Tran.  This photo was used for the cover of the ASTC's publication, the Shih Tzu Bulletin.

Winners for 2002:

Top 4” Preferred - LizZu Rags to Riches—B. Barron

Top 8” Preferred - Little Rascal’s CaCanny—D. Rathberger

Top 8” Regular - Mijule’s Red Hot Chili Pepper—L. Sponsler

Top 12” Regular - Scorzelli’s Take A Chance On Me—E. Scorzelli

2002 Agility Trial - "Meet Me in St. Louis"

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)

Coming soon ... blasts from the past

Over the next few weeks, I will be sharing photos and trivia regarding all of the past Shih Tzu national specialty agility trials ...

2002 - St. Louis (Gray Summit), MO
2003 - Minneapolis (Lake Elmo), MN
2004 - San Francisco (Burlingame), CA
2005 - Oklahoma City, OK
2006 - Frederick, MD
2007 - Vancouver (Battle Ground), WA
2008 - Atlanta (Conyers), GA
2009 - Oklahoma City, OK
2010 - St. Louis (Lake St. Louis), MO
2011 - Atlanta (Hiram), GA