In July we held our first more or less official fun match – a show and go and “introduction to agility” at Jennings Park in Marysville. It was highly successful. The event was well-run and made a good profit. It was a dress rehearsal for the Olympic Kennel Club (OKC) show to be held the following month.

In preparation for the OKC show, we practiced setting courses, timing and scribing, setting bars and all the other major and minor jobs involved in putting on a trial. Randy Mather developed a special computer program for the administrative part of the trial and to help with the scorekeeping. The big day arrived. We had 88 entries, with most in the Novice A class. A total of nine Sno-King dogs earned legs, and we came home feeling very proud of the job that we had done. We had lots of positive feedback. It was a financial success and Olympic Kennel Club was pleased.

Since most of the Sno-King members own AKC-registered dogs, and since AKC trials could be held with only a small core group, we decided early on to concentrate on holding AKC trials. However, we are not exclusively AKC. Most of our members compete in the other venues; in fact, Kay Jackson's Corgi, Katie, was one of the first dogs in the Northwest to earn the coveted Agility Dog Championship from the United States Dog Agility Association. NADAC trials are always popular with Sno-King members as well.

The next two years saw lots of growth and changes for Sno-King. We held an agility demonstration for Seattle Kennel Club's 100th anniversary show; we put on two “Introduction to Agility” workshops, moved to a different stable, and our classes were taken over by the club. We changed our name and by-laws to meet AKC requirements, becoming Sno-King Agility Club. We became incorporated under the State of Washington and purchased a trailer – the realization of our first big goals. In the Fall of 1997 we moved into a larger and better training facility. All the while, our members competed successfully in the various venues. Laurie Dorsey and Toby won the very first Columbia Cup NADAC trial in Vancouver; Jo Ann Mather's Semi became the first MX dog in Western Washington. Kay Jackson's Katie earned her ADCh.

In 1998, Sno-King really came of age with our first “very own” trial, held at Twin Springs Arabians in Bothell. With an entry of nearly 175 dogs, we were the first club in the Northwest to offer the new Jumpers with Weaves class. Our judge was Marquand Cheek, and he was a big hit with his hilarious briefings and great courses. The trial received rave reviews from everyone.

Realizing that the dearth of judges in the Northwest was hindering the growth of the sport, we appealed to Sharon Anderson to hold an AKC judges seminar. That seminar, hosted by Sno-King and held at the Pony Farm in Mt. Vernon resulted in sixteen new AKC judges, six of them from the Northwest.

Year 2000 marked some milestones as well. We discontinued our partnership with Olympic Kennel Club, deciding instead to branch out and offer other “flavors” of agility — in September we held our first USDAA Sanctioned Match. Sno-King added two Master Agility Champions to its rolls — Kay Jackson's Sam and Laurie Dorsey's Toby. Several teams earned MX and MXJ titles, as well as NADAC Elite titles. Our first USDAA trial was held in 2001, and in 2002 we added the “Vers-Agility Award” to our USDAA trial. Also in 2002 we added a second AKC trial, held in November at Argus Ranch in Auburn. Our classes, held on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights, were meeting at the facility in Clearview.

And here we are now…

We continue to be innovative and positive in our approach to training and to trial organization, and we encourage anyone who lives in our general area to join Sno-King and participate to whatever extent they are willing and able.

History by Jo Ann Mather