The man behind the legend...
 Alan
Bray has 35 years of experience competing at the very highest level with many
different breeds and heights. He has won every domestic honour several times
over with several different dogs including Crufts and Olympia and has made five
Agility Champions. In total, he has won over 2000 classes and competed in over
600 finals, winning 130 of them, giving him a win ratio of one in every 4.6
times. He was voted the Greatest Handler of All Time 1978-2008 by The Agility
Club members. In 2025, Alan and Ticita, his Working Cocker Spaniel, were crowned
World Champions at the FCI Senior Open Agility World Championships. Aby Cross of
Fur Baby Nutrition (formerly Finer by Nature) wanted to find out more about the
man behind all the trophies.
Thank you for agreeing to talk to me about
your life outside dog agility.
 Q. Other than agility,
what is your favourite sport?
A. I love my football and cricket. My
beautiful wife Louise and I are season ticket holders at Leicester City
Football Club and we go with either my son Brett or daughter Selena, my
brother and nephew. We do suffer regularly, but it's great to travel there
by train from London and go to the pub for a pre-match meal and a few pints
and have a catch up. Hey, we've seen the Foxes win the Premier League in
2016 at odds of 5000-1 against us!
In addition, we have a council-run gym
just five minutes from us on a college campus in Milton Keynes, and we try
and get to there as often as possible. And did I say it's only a short walk
from there to a local pub!
Q. What else do you like
to do when you are not teaching, training or going to agility shows?
A. Louise and I love the theatre and
often go to shows in Dartford, Milton Keynes and the London West End.
Occasionally we go to hear live bands as well which is a great escape from
the dogs!
 Q. Tell us about your
family.
A. We are blessed to have 11
grandchildren, and I love seeing them whenever we can. We really enjoy
family occasions, and we try to meet up to celebrate birthdays etc. whenever
we can which is lovely to do.
My mum is 93 and she now lives alone as
we lost my dad (aged 91) two years ago. She still lives in her own bungalow
near Leicester as she does not want to go into a home so my brothers and I
and our families look after her full-time.
We regularly see Lou's mum, Anne
Challis, and her dad as they lives close by. When we are in Dartford - and
not at a dog show or Leicester football match - I like to go to watch
Dartford FC with our young niece Amy Lou Challis and Lou's nephew Harry, so
we are all really close.
When at agility, I always try to catch
up with my daughter Selena and her two young boys.
Once a year Selena and Louise organise
Junior training at Dogs in Need, an annual, week-long charity show at The
Suffolk Showground, outside Ipswich. We invite guest trainers - including
some top handlers from abroad - to train the children in the evening after
the show has finished for the day. The kids absolutely love it!
Louise also arranges for our club,
Upanova Tigers, to go to the panto at Christmas, and we often meet up with
family and friends there for a pub meal or cup of tea at a local garden
centre.
 Q.
What do your dogs do when they are not competing?
A. We are
very lucky to has access to a private field in Milton Keynes, run by Angela
Fiddemore, where the club can train during the summer. We can leave the
equipment permanently set up and then, after training, we like to pop into
the local pub for a quick pint before going home which is really nice. Our
dogs can run round and play in the five acres of field there and do what
dogs do, having a sniff and racing each other up and down the length of the
field and generally being loopy!
We are also lucky enough to have some
safe rivers nearby in both Milton Keynes and Dartford where the dogs love to
swim, and the seaside isn't that far away from Dartford. Occasionally we
take them to the beach for a romp!
Q. I've heard that you are quite
fond of wildlife.
A. I was
brought up with wildlife so I feel a great affinity with nature, as does
Selena. We are very lucky that we have muntjac and fallow deer in Ange's
field as well as foxes, huge buzzards and red kites soaring overhead over
the voles.
There are also lots of Jenny wrens, blue
tits and robins as well as pheasants which is fun with our Working Cocker
Spaniels! Our friend's horses are in the field adjacent to us plus a nice
stream with newts in it which is really lovely.
We like to feed all the animals
especially the foxes. We put the food in the woods at the side of our
training area so they know the food source is there and not on our grass!
It's lovely seeing the new cubs appear in the late spring.
We also have three sets of foxes at our
Dartford Club equestrian centre which are quite trusting. Maybe I love them
as my football team is called The FOxes. They stand right next to me while I
feed them after training has finished and handlers have gone home. One of
the young vixen's even brought her cubs to see me and let me feed them. It
was brilliant. We also have some foxes in our street where we live in
Dartford which we feed along with the wild birds nesting in our roof eves!
 Q. Just a quick question
about judging and course design. What are your personal objectives?
A. My goal
is to make sure that both the handler and dog enjoy the course and feel a
sense of achievement in doing it while, at the same time, making it
entertaining for spectators.
I like to include skill sets such as
weave entry and exit and test independence of the dog in understanding how
to negotiate specific sequences and the contacts on their own whilst the
handler moves away to meet the dog at the next point. It's not always about
the fastest running handler wins.
I look for the best line for the dog to
negotiate a flowing course so it's not 'naggy' and then look for the best
line the handler needs to take to get them around it and then put things in
their way! So, the dogs have to have skill sets to get around the course
rather than the youngest fittest fastest handler with the dog running
alongside them wins! I am careful make sure the class is grade-relevant so
dogs and handlers are not over phased by the experience and put off doing
agility. And I want to enjoy judging it as well!
About the author...
Abigail Cross is a director of
Fur Baby Nutrition Ltd.
FBN
started
more than 12 years ago as a small, Worcestershire-based family business. From
humble beginnings, the company has evolved into a producer of raw foods for dogs
as well as a distributor of high quality treats, chews and supplements. Their
focus has always been on quality and choice with a blend of good old-fashioned
service, and they obtain products from all over the UK and European Union from
safe and sustainable sources.
FBN is proud to have supported Alan for the
majority of the last 10 years. All of his and Louise's dogs have grown up and
thrived on FBN products.
For more information, go to
Fur Baby Nutrition
First published 7th October 2025
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