A four-legged resident of North Vancouver and her proud owner will be representing Canada at two different international dog agility competitions this month.
Four-year-old Chili, a red merle border collie, and her owner Wendy Alexander, have qualified to compete in the IFCS World Agility Championships in the Netherlands May 7 to 11, followed by the World Agility Open Championships in Italy May 16 to 18.
This marks the first time the pair have travelled overseas for an agility event.
"I wasn't really expecting to qualify this year, so we're quite excited about it," Alexander says, explaining Chili is on the young side for this level of competition. "She's a bit of a wild child. I wasn't sure I'd get there with her because, let's just say, she's very exuberant, but she's turned into a great little dog."
Alexander, a professional dog trainer with DogWorks Training, has other pooches at home who she has taken to Canadian and North American competitions. Since this is her first time competing in Europe, she and Chili have been putting in plenty of extra practise time.
"In Europe, their courses are so much more technical than ours are, so we've been trying to practise on some of the European-style courses to try and get up to that level, but it's definitely a challenge."
Alexander and Chili were scheduled to leave for the Netherlands this weekend.
