Agility people in Texas?

I was at the (UKC) Texas Classic in Hutto last month, and they had an agility trial there. Its supposed to have been the first UKC trial in the area. I got to talking with the person who was responsible for setting it all up, Susan Brasel, and she told me about how short-staffed they are. Basically, its her and another gentleman who did almost all the work, and they're both getting up there in years. She felt they had a great turn-out for their first trial, but she doesn't know if they'll be able to do it again with no help.

There is practically no support for UKC agility in general, and even less support for building equipment, transporting it, setting up, breaking down, running the table, etc. What I keep hearing is that there is a strong bias towards AKC agility, that people don't want to do UKC because its "too slow," etc. UKC agility is open to all breeds and mixes since they have an LP program for unregisterable dogs who are spayed/neutered. The fact that you could take a shelter/rescue dog and run UKC agility with them has got to appeal to some people. (I just need to find those people. LOL)

So what I was wondering was, is there anyone here who would be willing to help UKC agility get on its feet? I think what they need more than anything is manpower. Or a club that has its own equipment and would be willing to host the trials. If you want to email me directly, feel free, and I can forward your interest to Susan Brasel, who is responsible for coordinating the trials. [email protected]

I know I am unable to help considering where I live but I thought I would also raise a couple of points.

I think one (from talking to other people) that UKC has trouble with their agility is because of the differences in some of the obstacles. Because many clubs just don't have that equipment for people to train on. Therefore people focus on the many trials that have the same equipment/obstacles, although there is usually different jump heights and frame height differences, basically the equipment is the same.
There is also CPE, NADAC and USDAA where people can compete and Title with non registered dogs along with a few other Orgs.

I am in Texas, but too far from Hutto to help any. I volunteer at all the tirals I go to though. And to further what adojrts said, Texas is the home of USDAA headquarters and there are also plenty of NADAC trials available to those who participate with mixed breeds. CPE and the toy dog registry started by Bud Houston are also becoming more popular in this area.

The UKC trials I've been to appear to have the same equipment as the AKC trials. I hear what you're saying that folks have other options available, but its a bummer that those who want to do UKC agility down there have to travel out of state to do it. We've got UKC agility here in OK, but no weight pull. Texas the weight pull, but no agility. I wish there were more super-clubs who would host different stuff.

I thought the UKC had things like the swing bridge and that funky kinda tunnel thing? It is sad, but if they think its too slow what about NADAC, its known to be faster than AKC. Or if they want a challenge offer USDAA.

How about polling the local dog people and finding out what non AKC venue they would be most likely to support and go with that?

There are lots of UKC clubs already established in Texas, they just dont have the time/resources/interest in hosting agility trials.

There are a few obstables in UKC that are different than the ones used in any other venue. The swing (sway) bridge and the log jump and the crawl tunnel are just a few off the top of my head. Thats probably why clubs aren't too quick to pick up UKC agility.

Swing plank, sway bridge, crawl tunnel. I don't think they're required to use the jump made out of horizontal pipes. The first three are for the UAGII dogs.

As far as polling to see what non-UKC venues people would support, that kinda defeats my purpose, which is to gain support for UKC agility specifically. NADAC has tons of trials -- not sure about TX in particular, but I know there's always a mess of events listed on their site. I don't know about USDAA or CPE. Maybe this just isn't the state for it. There's tons of UKC agility in Illinois, for example. Oh well. I've gotten some interest from UKC people since the North Texas APBT club was kind enough to include a blurb about it in their mailing. Now I can't get in touch with the gal I was passing the info on to. LOL!