About Us

Wendy Page, Instructor

I started doing agility in the summer of 1994 with Severnside DAC with my first dog, Meggie, (Kenn Street Nutmeg) who was 2 and a half at that time. I was very kindly given her from a local farm, she was a blue merle collie and from that moment we were hooked, we started competing the following year. She was a good starting dog for me as she was very willing and learned quickly. Now 16 years on, I think if I had her now, knowing what I do now, she would have been even better. There was so much more I could have done with her, but being a "newbie" to the sport I didn't know that then. It was the help and support of the club that got us to where we did . She won out of (what was then) Starters in 1996, at our own club show at Lansdown. We carried on having fun until she was 10, when I retired her as she was struggling to jump. She enjoyed life for two more years, until she died aged 12.

While I was having such fun with Meggie, Nick (husband) and I decided to get another dog. We wanted another collie which Nick could train, so along came Desmo (Desmo Dromic) from another local farm, but we had to pay for him!!!. Unfortunately Nick found he could not commit 100% as he belonged to Clevedon Athletic club, so I took on the training of Dizzy Desmo, (as he came to be called). Desmo's agility carear was not as successful as Meggie's, as it soon became clear to us that he had issues, such as fear aggression and being ringshy which was a shame as his agility performance was pretty good. So he then became a 'pet' dog. He lived to the age of 13, when unfortunately we had to make the decision to have him put to sleep, as he had been diagnosed with kidney failure a few months before.

As Desmo's agility career didn't take off, we decided to have a third dog -I was in the minority at club as most people had multiple dog households. We thought it would be good to take on a rescue dog. Zen came from Valgrays Border Collie rescue in St Austell, Cornwall. She was 5/6 months old. When we got her home we found out that the laid back attitude she had led us to believe she had was just a disguise. She was manic once she got her confidence. It was this behaviour that led her to have a bad accident in which she broke one of her hind legs. She could have very easily lost that leg, but with an operation that involved screwing two metal bars to her bones, she recovered, but not without complications. An infection set in and it took months for her to get going again. Despite this set back we started training and were soon competing, but she never really took to it, so was not that successful.

It was after we lost Meggie and when Zen showed no enthusiasm for agility, and Desmo was dealing with his issues, that we were approached by friends of ours about a collie they had bought but could not meet its needs.This dog had had a couple of homes before already and was only 5/6 months old.We only had the two dogs now so we thought why not give it a home. So we were given another free dog. Kaz (after a name change from Jazz and Jasper) was a joy right from the word go. He has just turned 5 now and loves agility. He is a joy to train and compete with. He is a very fast dog, so training is a whole new ball game for me. We compete at Kennel Club and UK Agility shows in which he has been showing great promise. Our goal is to move up a grade in KC, and he has already moved up from Novice to Senior in Steeplechase at UKA. So it is with help and support from my club and trainers that will enable us to acheive my goals .