Agility training and competitions offer exciting, challenging exercise for the minds and bodies of Portuguese Water Dogs and their handlers.
Working together to navigate jumps, tunnels, weaves, and other obstacles, canine and human teams work together to move quickly and accurately through courses of varying degrees of difficulty.
With their exuberance and athleticism, PWDs have proven to be excellent agility dogs. Many have achieved advanced titles in high levels of competition and several breed representatives have even earned the Master Agility Champion (MACH) title and beyond! – from PWDCA
Another sport that the portie is a natural at is FAST-CAT (coursing ability test). This is a timed 100-yard dash where dogs run one at a time, chasing a lure. Check out the images below of Pepper running like the wind.
Porties also excel at Water Sports. They are amazing and strong swimmers, with great stamina. As a working breed they are descendants of dogs that worked as a crew member on Portuguese fishing vessels retrieving overboard objects, carrying messages, swimming fishing floats into place, and guarding the boats, nets, and catch when in port.
The PWDCA offers so much information about activities that you and your portie may do together. Make sure to check out their page.
Agility
The sport of dog agility is a wonderful way to exercise, play, stimulate, calm, build confidence, and just have fun for you and your dog. I put puppy size equipment in the puppy’s play area to encourage them to walk on different surfaces, get exercise, have fun, and get a head start on this exciting sport. This sport is great for people of all ages. My son, Josh, is seen in the other images working with our first pwd, Belle, in the agility ring.
Fast Cat
K9 Toss and Fetch / Disc Dog Sports
There are several varieties of frisbee games to play with your pwds.
Below are images of Cali playing K9 Toss & Fetch, local leagues may be found internationally. We play with the South Florida Toss and Fetch league. Frisbee in the pool or any water is an extra special treat for your PWD.
Our latest Toss and Fetch champion in the making, Riptide’s Belle of the Ball (Ellie) trying her paws at the sport this past weekend. I cannot wait to see what she can do! Ellie is out of the Rumour x Epic Eddie Litter from this summer.