And the race is on... Shadow flies around the course. He leaps a jump, goes through a tunnel and then mounts the A-frame. There are cheers from the crowd. It sounds like your average day at the racetrack, but in fact, this is dog agility.

Shadow is a four-year-old papillon and his handler is 11-year-old Hannah Shadbolt.

Miss Shadbolt is the youngest member of the Avonlea Dog Agility Club run by Douglas Mello in his backyard in Smith's parish.

On a quiet Sunday morning The Royal Gazette met up with the group as they practised for upcoming dog agility trials at the Bermuda Kennel Club 2010 Dog Show to be held this weekend at Somersfield Academy.

Dog agility is a sport in which a handler directs a dog through an obstacle course in a race for both time and accuracy.

Dogs compete without a leash or food or toy incentives, and handlers can't touch the dog or the obstacles.

Mr. Mello and his beagle, Casey, hold both conformation and obedience titles, but their true love is competitive agility. Mr. Mello runs dog agility training classes, workshops and seminars with his wife, Kendra.

The Mello family have three dogs that they enter in dog agility events two beagles and a papillon.

"Papillons are an emerging breed with this," said Mr. Mello. "You can go to trials in the United States and there are all sorts of dogs, cross breeds, everything.

"There are certain breeds that excel in dog agility. With your larger dogs it is the border collies.

"With the mid-size dogs it will be the shelties and with smaller dogs it is the Jack Russell Terriers. In the even smaller category you have papillons."

Certain crosses also tend to do exceptionally well such as border collie-Jack Russells.

On this particular day there were a number of different dogs at the Avonlea meeting including collies, beagles, a Tibetan terrier, papillons and cross-breed dogs.

"My oldest beagle, Casey was the first dog in Bermuda to get her master agility championship," said Mr. Mello. "She was followed very closely by Janice Moran's poodle, Tosca, followed by Rachel Hutchings' Jack Russell Terrier, Poppet.

"I was at one set of trials and they were at the next set of trials. There are people here who do go away to compete. Janice and I did a big trial in New Jersey in the Northeast regional recently. There were 500 dogs in that competition."

Mr. Mello said some people in the club were serious competitors and other people just wanted to have fun with their dog.

"It depends on how well you want to do," he said. "It is like any other sport, some people do it for fun while others are more serious about competition."

He said how well you and your dog do in the sport usually depends on how much energy you are willing to spend on it.

"You excel and you move forward depending on the amount of the work you do," he said.

Racing around an obstacle course is a great way for a dog to burn off steam, and also bond with its handler. Some dog trainers have recommended agility training as a way to deal with behaviour problems brought on by boredom and inactivity in high energy breeds.

"Dog agility training can go a long way to giving the dog a job to do, and it can certainly help," said Mr. Mello. "Most of the dogs here because of the training and socialising they are getting, don't have issues.

"The biggest issue with this, is keeping people involved. It is not just a six week thing you do with the dog.

"Students in the first five months don't see any equipment. It is just training, flat work, games and tricks and play."

The agility course is meant to be fun for the dog, not tedium.

"Agility for me is nothing more than structured play," Mr. Mello said. "It is all a game I am playing with my dog. There is nothing connected to your dog.

"It is not like horseriding where you are holding on to your horse. You are relying on the connection between the two of you to successfully negotiate the course."

There are a number of different obstacles on the course including jumps, teeter-totters, an A-frame, tunnels and weave poles that the dog must weave himself in and out of at high velocity.

"The dog must go over the jump," said Mr. Mello. "The yellow and blue pieces on the obstacles are the contact pieces. The dog must hit one foot on the yellow on the way up [the A-frame or teeter-totter] and one foot on the yellow on the way down.

"The obstacle the dogs tend to have the most issues with is the weave poles. It all depends on how you are training and what is going on.

"Some people teach weave poles front to back in three weeks. For other people it takes longer. It depends on how much time you are willing to put into it."

The Bermuda Kennel Club 2010 Dog Show will be held tomorrow and Sunday at Somersfield Academy. Judging starts at 8.30 a.m.

There will be four international all-breed championship dog shows, and the Dog Training Club of Bermuda will be holding four licensed agility trials.

The shows allow dogs, handlers and owners from North America to compete with their Bermuda counterparts. Admission is free.

Visit the show website at www.babc.bm. For more information about Avonlea Agility visit www.avonleaagility.com.