Dances with Dogs - Annual Award Presentations Australia

Dances with Dogs - Annual Award Presentations Australia

At the annual Dog Sports Committee presentation evening held in January, trophies were

presented to Lisa Williamson for both the Heelwork to Music (HTM) and Freestyle Dog

of the Year awards and to Sharon Clark for the Freestyle Championship title for her Border Collie, Holly (FS.CH

Deargban Highland Holly HTM.A, RA).

The Dog of the Year awards recognise excellence throughout the year and are based on the highest aggregate across three

submitted qualifying certificates in HTM and Freestyle respectively.

Lisa’s Cass (Cass Cookies N Cream of Ohutu (Imp NZl) CDX, FS.A, HTM.A) won the Freestyle Dog of the Year. Her younger Border Collie, Clover (Cloverwood Sweet Clover (IID NZl) HTM.S, FS.N) scooped the

pool to win the HTM Dog of the Year.

Championship titles in both Freestyle and HTM require the dog to attain scores of approximately 90% of the total available points

(180 total points in the case of Dances With Dogs - DWD) on a further 7 occasions after completion of the relevant Advanced title; those 7 routines must also be undertaken to at least 3 different

pieces of music.

Several DWD enthusiasts were also awarded trophies for their Rally Obedience Champion title completed during 2017. They were Coral Pethers and Amber (Papillon), Therese Murchison and Lucy (Yorkshire Terrier) and Ros Smith and Jedda (Australian Kelpie).

Although all our DWD award recipients this year were Border Collies, the sport is open to all breeds and we see considerable

variety of sizes and breeds at our competitions. As well as the Yorkshire Terrier, Papillon, Border Collies and Australian Kelpies,

we have had Labradors, Portugese Water Dogs, Golden Retrievers, German Shorthaired Pointer and Weimaraners from the Gundog breeds; German Shepherds, Belgian Shepherd (Malinois), Finnish Lapphund and Scotch Collies from the working breeds; Poodles both Standard and Miniature; Boxer, Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, Staffordshire Terrier, Dachshund and Miniature Dachshund.

The Queensland Dog World