AGILITY WORKSHOPS with Heather Adams - Canine Expo 2025

Heather Adams has been teaching people how to train dogs for over 17 years. She has a Bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology and many years of work experience in wildlife management and animal behavior. She’s a graduate of the Teacher Certification Program at the University at Buffalo and the Karen Pryor Academy for Animal Training and Behavior. She is also a Certified Behavior Adjustment Training Instructor, which is a specific method of helping dogs with fear, anxiety and aggression. Her passion is teaching people solid foundations and handling skills that will build strong agility teams with their dogs.

Heather started dog agility in 2005 with a golden retriever and has since competed with 4 border collies and a Lhasa apso. She primarily follows the One Mind Dogs methods and has trained extensively with Kayl McCann and Jamie Moreau in Canada and Emily Klarman in the U.S. She has competed in every single agility venue available in the U.S. and is competitive at national events. Heather and her dog Star have earned 13 UKI International Agility Championship titles. They twice won a bye to the Agility World Championship Tryouts, which means winning first place overall in both ISC levels 2 and 3 runs at a world qualifier AKC ISC event. At last year’s AWC tryouts they stood on the podium for a second place clean run. Heather and Star also twice earned their way to the European Open tryouts. They won 4th place overall at the first ever AKC ISC National Championship. And most recently Heather and Star were selected for TEAM USA competing in the Americas y el Caribe FCI world agility event in Santiago, Chile in April 2025 where they stood on the podium for 3 different events and won 5th place in finals. Then they won 4th place overall at the 2025 AWC World Team tryouts in Missouri. She is also a judge for United Kingdom Agility International (UKI).

Info:


Novice/intermediate Level Workshop prerequisites: dogs must be able to perform sequences of a few jumps and tunnels and dogs should have a reliable recall in the workshop environment.


In this workshop you will learn the three C’s : Connection, Commitment and Cue.


Handlers will sequence jumps and tunnels with handling techniques focusing on maintaining connection, understanding the dog’s line and understanding collection vs extension for the dog and when/how to cue the right on.

Info:


This is a Master Level Agility Workshop


Agility is constantly changing. It can be hard to keep up! The newest trends in agility include layering, more distance and different approaches to backsides seen in AKC masters and premier courses and UKI courses.


This workshop will give the handler the skills needed when handling from a distance and laying obstacles, understanding the dogs line vs. the handler’s line, how to maximize your dog’s momentum and how to cue collection vs extension from a distance. This workshop will include all obstacles.

Info: Novice/intermediate Level Workshop prerequisites: dogs must be able to perform sequences of a few jumps and tunnels and dogs should have a reliable recall in the workshop environment.


Tunnels are so easy when you start learning agility, handlers may not realize how many different tunnel skills they could teach to their dog to running courses more successful and fun. In this workshop handlers will learn tunnel breaks, turns out of tunnel, tunnel threadles (going on the not so obvious side), going straight out of a tunnel and drive forward (something hard for dogs newer to agility), bypassing an off course tunnel temptation, and more.

Info:


This is a Master Level Agility Workshop


Agility is constantly changing. It can be hard to keep up! The newest trends in agility include layering, more distance and different approaches to backsides seen in AKC masters and premier courses and UKI courses.


This workshop will teach handlers all the different ways to approach backsides and how to avoid the most common mistakes that handlers make when executing backside challenges on a course. Handlers will work on jump skills and work masters level sequences of jumps and tunnels to perfect their backside threadles, wraps and slices.

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