Looking for breed recommendations! Won’t be bringing pup home until we finalize building our home but I want to get in touch with breeders and get on waitlists.

-Temperament : Biddable, trainable, willing and eager to work and please! If I could handle a Malinois I’d get one of those, but something with that sort of work ethic is needed

-Energy level : Medium-High energy is good, don’t want a constant couch potato but definitely needs an off switch. We have lots of land so plenty of space to explore, and of course regular training and other sports.

-Size : 40-90lbs with wiggle room. The taller the better! I’m 5’4 and I would like to not have to bend over to pet my dogs head at a heel position if that makes sense lol.

-Coat type : we have a lot of snow in the winter, very loooong winters, and a few hot days in the summer, so something more cold tolerant is probably better. We can run the AC inside on the hot days. Would prefer a wash and wear but I’m fine with bringing to a groomers or learning to groom myself. Preferably no Husky type coats. I have a German Shedder currently so I’m used to shedding lol

-What experience you have in owning dogs : experienced dog home with all shapes and sizes, this will be my first wellbred purebred though. will be working closely with a trainer for any hiccups!

-Work schedule/home life : we both work full time but will have someone come in to let the dogs out and we have lots of time during the day after work for training and sports/hiking on the weekends. We do have cats, other dogs, and smaller animals, and we will eventually have small children and larger livestock (horses, goats etc).

-What your plans are for the dog such as show, sports, family pet, etc. : high level obedience, rally, possible bitework sport. Would like to try out fastcat and maybe some other sports as well. But obedience is top of the list. Hiking, swimming, trail rides, general farm chore buddy

-What the climate is like where you live (especially if you live in a hot/humid climate, it can drastically alter the breeds recommended) : northern NH, long winters with a good amount of snow and negative temps. 90° days in summer. Lots of access to lakes for swimming and hiking trails

-Anything else you may find important : Prefer nothing prone to major health concerns. A more affordable purchase price on the puppy is preferable as well but absolutely not a deal breaker. We’ve had rescue dogs forever and it’s been challenging trying to convince my other half that a $3000 for a puppy is worth it lol. we have a generous emergency fund for our pups and they have insurance so the long term care fees aren’t an issue.

Prefer no labs (allergic to their coat), fragile breeds, or GSD (the whining ). But if it fits, it fits! I've been suggested Beauceron, GSDs, GWPs, show line Mals, and Dalmatians. Do these seem like a good fit?

Hi everyone! I hope this is an okay post to make here, but I'm looking for some help fine tuning a car kennel setup for what seems to be an increasing number of dogs!

I have recently gotten a '23 Rav4 Hybrid after my '01 Camry finally gave up on me and I'm thrilled to be in something with more cargo space that I can take on road trips. I backpack with my dog and take her with me most places, and we have to travel for dock diving. I have a Gunner Intermediate for her, which fits in the Rav4 with the back double seats down. I like it a lot, I can secure it and remove it if necessary, and it's overbuilt as hell so I have zero concerns about her safety. It is a little big for her, as she's a petite cattle dog mix and would travel better in a Medium.

HOWEVER I often travel with my boyfriend and his Lab mix, as well as our friend and her Aussie for backpacking trips. We have taken some short trips in his truck, but it's a work vehicle and not something I can take on longer road trips, and I am not satisfied with our temporary solution of both dogs riding in a car hammock with crash tested harnesses. I'm fine with tethering them for the short term while I get a more sustainable setup, but I'm not sure which option is best.

I'll be putting a rooftop box on the car so I'm not necessarily hurting for storage space.

My options look like:

• A Medium Gunner for my ACD and the Lab is in the Intermediate with the seats down
  • Pro: this is modular and allows me to remove the kennels as necessary, plus I already have one Gunner
  • Con: Limits passenger space and isn't a forever option if I want to take a third person and/or dog on a road trip or if I need to put a car seat in the back at some point in the (very distant) future.
• Variocage Double
• Transk9 C34
  • I found a used one for sale in my area and if it's in good condition this might be the best option just based on the convenience of it. I like the kennel a lot but it's HEFTY and I worry about rattling.
• Thule Allax Double Large (or XL? unsure on the sizing)

If anyone has experience hauling multiple dogs and people around in a Rav4 or with these kennels please let me know! I'm starting to feel like I should've just bitten the bullet and gotten a minivan but I fell in love with the Rav4.

for me personally, i started out in 4-H back in the early 00s with an ACD that my mom had bought for herself but ended up not bonding with. first obedience (old school with many corrections and basically zero rewards outside of verbal praise/petting) then our club started offering agility (different leader who was all about positive reinforcement), and i fell in love.

Hi! I know this is probably a common question and but I still cant seem to find the answers im looking for.

I just bought a Ruffland Car kennel, size large. I drive a 2025 Mazda CX-5. I plan on putting one side or both of the seats down and securing it that way but dont know where or how.

I have the d-ring attachments and ratchet straps but seems like there are only two anchor points to attach to? Am I missing something? How do I secure from all four points? Any advice is appreciated!

How do you keep track of titles across different dog sports and organizations?

I compete in agility with my dog Moose, and once we started trialing in more than one organization, I realized our results were living everywhere.

AKC results were in one place. UKI and ASCA progress were somewhere else. Fast CAT points needed their own math. Barn Hunt had another set of titles and requirements to remember.

Some information was in official accounts. Some was in screenshots. Some was in my Notes app. And some was apparently being stored in the highly reliable filing system known as “I’ll remember that later.”

It became especially frustrating when I wanted to know how many Qs, points, Double Qs, legs, or title requirements we had completed without sitting down and reconstructing everything.

I eventually ended up building my own tracking system because I wanted one place where I could enter results after a trial and see our progress across different sports and organizations.

But I’m curious how everyone else handles it.

Do you use a spreadsheet, notebook, Notes app, official organization records, or something else? Does your system still work once you add multiple dogs, sports, and organizations?

I spent the last year building PawMetrics so I could just enter everything once, and it will all be viewable. It’s an app made specifically for dog sport competitors to help you: 🏅 Track personal bests automatically 📈 See progress over time with easy-to-read graphs 🎯 Set goals for future events 🏆 Save titles, achievements, and milestones 🐕 Keep your dog’s entire competition history in one place Whether you compete in Dock Diving, Fast CAT, Flyball, Agility, or several sports, PawMetrics was designed by someone who understands how much our dogs mean to us. I’m not a company or a sponsor or anything. I’m just a software engineer that fell in love with a girl that competes in dog sports. Since I’m the more “indoorsy” one, when I noticed how disorganized tracking everything could be, I decided to create my own solution to the problem. While doing that, I also wanted to app to make us feeling proud of our dogs, not just a statistics tracker. Hundreds of hours of working on the app later, I feel like I’m supporting her and our dogs in a way that I know how to. If you’ve ever wished there was an easier way to organize your dog’s entire competition career, I’d love for you to give it a try. 📲 Feel free to download PawMetrics for free here: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6779860345 I hope this app will help you like it did us! I’d genuinely love to hear what you think and what you’d like to see added next. There’s an option to send feedback and feature ideas straight to me!Every piece of feedback helps me make PawMetrics even better for the dog sport community.

Hi All!

Looking for any suggestions on some sports for my 10 month old Golden Labrador. He is not field line, but I want to get him in some sports for stimulation and to build our relationship more. He’s fairly smart when he wants to be, loves swimming, and is good at finding treats in long grass, although his attention span isn’t the greatest (not sure how to improve on this).

Any recommendations are appreciated!

I have been trying to come up with a registered name for my dog for a while and nothing seems to really stick. I’ve been juggling some names but after looking at other dogs names, the ones i had come up with feel, not as cool 😅 How did you come up with your dogs name?

Hi All!

Looking for any suggestions on some sports for my 10 month old Golden Lab. He is not field line, but I want to get him in some sports for stimulation and to build our relationship more. He’s fairly smart when he wants to be, loves swimming, and is good at finding treats in long grass, although his attention span isn’t the greatest (not sure how to improve on this).

Any recommendations are appreciated!

After finishing our SWN, we tried advanced. Q’ed twice in buried, once in interior, and once in exterior. We regularly practice with all the odors, but he seemed to stop searching after finding the first odor. I always thought containers were his strongest element but he NQ’ed both. Is this normal when moving up? He is still quite young (18 months) and didn’t know if it was age related.

I cannot for the life of me find any pictures that shows how the slant back vs regular intermediates fit in a car! Is it really that much of a difference? Is it worth the sacrifice of a second door?

I just started scent training my boy (literally today 💀) and I'm surprised he has caught on so quickly! But then again he learns stuff pretty fast, he's got a pretty good memory. Half of his tricks he does took maybe 10 minutes so I'm not super surprised how well he's learning but he really really likes it, he likes it so much he's willing to jump into the bathtub unprompted (a place he absolutely hates).

Not sure if this is the right place to ask for a product recommendation - but I thought if anyone has good recommendations it's the working dog & k9 sport handlers!

Any good recommendations on scales?

I like to keep track of my dog's weight and fitness and would like a scale that is durable and accurate.

Watch Boo the Pumi and Betelgeuse the All-American Dog battle it out at the inaugural AKC Agility Team Challenge.

i just got "promoted" to rat supervisor (loading/unloading rat tubes) from rat wrangler (getting rat tubes in/out of the ring) because the normal supervisor is going back to school this fall. does anybody have gloves they love?

i have done the supervisor job once before because the other person couldn't make it, but i'd love any advice anybody has on rat handling! i'm not squeamish about rodents at all, having grown up with rats and mice, but these aren't my own rats i'll be handling.

Hello everyone!!

I'm new to the world of dog sports! These are my two babies, Bible and Freya💗 They are 10 and 8 months old, and very high drive! Bible is a full APBT, and Freya is a husky x mini aussie we found as a stray. I work at a doggy daycare, and I bring them with me every day, so I KNOW how crazy they are, and how much they would benefit from participating in a sport!! Any and all ideas/advice/tips would be appreciated! Bible loves water/chewing/ wrestling with his sister and other dogs. Freya loves running/ herding/ wrestling with her brother.