This dog is going to have his day

Mary Jo Johnson has been training agility dogs for only six years. But thanks to their hard work, Johnson and her champion 4-year-old Shetland sheepdog, Sully, are headed to the American Kennel Club national championship in Oklahoma later this month — and maybe to the world championships in September.

In canine agility competitions, dogs climb A-frame ramps, make their way over see-saws, weave in and out of poles, dive through tunnels and leap over hurdles, competing for the best time as they negotiate the tricky courses. Handlers like Johnson direct their dogs along the courses using hand and verbal signals.

At agility competitions, handlers are generally given just 10 minutes to familiarize themselves with the course before the event begins. The dogs aren’t allowed to see the course before they compete and rely on their handlers’ direction to tell them where to go, after having practiced on each type of obstacle for many hours at home.

Johnson first got into agility training in 2000, when she bought her first purebred dog — a bi-blue Shetland sheepdog named Angus. Johnson decided to invest the time and money for formal obedience training. At the end of one of Angus’s obedience classes, the class instructor put out a few agility-course obstacles “just for fun” — and Angus picked up the sport “like he was born for it,” Johnson recalls.

Not long after she got Angus, Johnson bought Sully. He, too, demonstrated a talent for running an agility course. Recently, she bought a third sheepdog, 14-week-old Pippin.

Among Johnson’s dogs, Sully has shown the most promise in agility competitions. Johnson and Sully traveled to Italy last year for the European Open Agility Championships and finished in the top 15 percent of more than 600 teams in their division. At the end of the month, the pair will compete in the American Kennel Club National Agility Championship in Tulsa. Later in the season, on May 2, they will head to Minnesota to try out for a spot on the world team, with the goal of representing the U.S. at the World Canine Agility Championships in Finland in September.

Johnson dedicates almost all of her free time to the sport. Her dogs compete just about every weekend and practice at the Boom Towne Canine Center, an agility training facility in Farmington where Johnson also teaches, or in Johnson’s backyard every night. Off the course, the dogs keep fit by jogging alongside Johnson, logging two to four miles per day.

In many ways, Johnson’s dogs are treated like thoroughbred horses — which is fitting, since Johnson used to train horses at Finger Lakes Gaming & Race Track.

These dogs don’t just go to the vet; they also see a chiropractor, a massage therapist and a Reiki master. In addition to their diet of Oma’s Pride raw dog food, Johnson’s shelties take supplements of glucosamine and flax seed. At TheraVet Acres, a pet and equine rehabilitation center in Webster, the dogs keep their muscles in tone by walking on a treadmill in a swimming pool.

All those treatments can get expensive, but for Johnson, training agility dogs is a labor of love.

It’s also a sport than any dog-handler team can participate in, she says — and it’s a great way for both dogs and owners to get their exercise. And although some competition circles do require that dogs be purebred in order to participate, there are plenty of events that all types of dogs can compete in. To get started, a dog just needs to understand basic obedience commands, said Johnson.

The key to making it as far as Johnson and Sully have is simple, says Boom Towne owner Hank Miller: “They work hard at it.”