Agility as a holiday attraction
 Getting
paid for what she enjoyed doing seemed an offer Helen Walland couldn't refuse! As she is back
again for the third year running, you can imagine that she is still enjoying it. For the last
couple of years, she has been running agility demonstrations over the Whitsun half term week at
Hatton World, a farm park in Warwickshire. What better
way to spend a holiday!
We have made lots of friends amongst the
agility people who have come to help out, the young people who work at the park and, of course,
our public. In fact, we have one fan who came every day to watch our shows. She even helped
run a dog at the last one.
We do three half hour productions each
day in a field with seats around the edges. Our shows consist of demonstrating the equipment,
various circular knockout type races and anything else we can think of, depending on the dogs
we have at the time. Sometimes we invite the children in the audience to see if they can run as
fast as a collie. Sometimes we show puppy training. We involve children in starting the
knockout races and presenting rosettes to the winners. It's great to find how eager the kids
are to move poles up and down for us, too.
At the end of each show, we take the
bombproof dogs out to meet the audience and teach children how to meet dogs. The dogs show off
their tricks and we always have a large quantity of tiny pieces of cheese for the children to
feed to the dogs. It's amazing how many adults are surprised that dogs like cheese. If we don't
have too many children, we sometimes allow them to send a dog through the tunnel, while grandma
takes a photo!
The public seem to enjoy the shows and
love being able to get close to the dogs. We have been able to help many children who were very
wary of dogs to enjoy stroking a calm dog.
There are downsides to everything, of
course. The worst one for us has been having to perform in any weather – often torrential rain!
And there is always someone who hasn't a clue
about what we are doing and allows their toddler onto the course at inappropriate times. I've
become quite good at scooping up kids and taking them back to totally unbothered parents.
It has been an excellent opportunity for
general dog education of the public, showing why collies do not necessarily make good family
pets and being able to steer people towards smaller less energetic dogs. We always emphasise
the needs of pet dogs and how important sensitive training is for any dog.
 The
handlers who have come to help us in the past have ranged from one handler with loads of dogs,
whole families with loads of dogs and friends with beginner dogs who just want to give them
some experience and everything else in between. We have free camping on site and there's a
super shopping village there, too.
If you think you might like to come and
join in the fun even for part of the week 31May – 8 June email Helen at
helen.walland@gmail.com The amount of money I can pay depends on how many people are
helping at any time and the number of dogs and handlers you provide. We take dogs of any
standard, size and age, providing they are able to cope with the situation, have a good recall
and don't bark the whole time
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