NEW YORK — Leslie Holm has no trouble pulling together a big-time performance. She spent 19 years as a lighting technician and electrician on tours by acts ranging from Beyonce to Bon Jovi.
But guiding her dog, Riley Nico, through the Westminster Kennel Club agility competition? “This gives me butterflies,” Holm says.
She never envisioned herself doing something like this before adopting the mixed-breed dog and seeing her jump over benches and weave around people at a pooch park.
Three years later, in her first turn Saturday at the nation’s most famous dog show, Riley Nico finished racking up points to be at the “master agility champion” level.
But Holm says the biggest reward isn’t a ribbon or title — it’s a connection.
“You’re teammates. It’s not just like having a pet,” says Holm, who’s now an electrician for conventions so she can be home more with her dogs.
As many as 330 dogs, from Yorkshire terriers to German shepherds, and their human teammates navigated jumps, turns, ramps and tunnels as the show opened Saturday, aiming for the nighttime, televised finals. (Not to be outdone, some pedigreed cats had a go at agility at a companion event next door.)
The show, now in its 142nd year, added agility in 2014, incorporating an increasingly popular sport — and with it, mixed-breed dogs. A record 29 of them signed up to compete this year.
The more traditional part of Westminster, featuring 2,882 entries, begins Monday morning and leads up to the best in show pick Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden.
Agility winners so far have all been purebred, and the sport definitely has its breeds-to-beat. Just ask these 55 border collies, 34 Shetland sheepdogs or 18 Australian shepherds, for instance.
But contestants like Zuri the basenji and Valur the Saluki came from breeds seldom seen at agility trials.
Greyhound-like Salukis have speed and stamina but are known for independent-mindedness. So Christine Klein figured out how to get Valur engaged: make sure training isn’t repetitive, and don’t bother correcting him if he makes a mistake.
“He doesn’t like to be wrong,” she said.
On the other end of the lankiness spectrum is Spec the longhaired dachshund — or “the Weavin’ Weiner,” as owner Carole Krivanich calls him.
“For him to run along the ground and not stop and smell anything is a challenge,” she said.
