Clean Run - October 2010 - 51

affiliate with one or more agility organizations. We had experience in AKC, NADAC and CPE. AKC was the dominant venue in our area, but we could not qualify as an AKC club on our own. NADAC was our favorite venue, there was a reasonable following of handlers in the region who had started competing in NADAC, and becoming a NADAC club is pretty easy. Although we were concerned about getting trial dates because of the large number of clubs offering NADAC within a 300mile radius, we decided that NADAC was where we’d start. If trial dates became a problem, we’d see about CPE, TDAA, or another second venue. During our first year of operation, we did well on our two NADAC trials and quickly moved to obtain five weekends per year on the NADAC calendar. Right now, that feels comfortable, both with

what we can handle and what the region will support. We’ve considered adding another venue, but in a tight economy, we have delayed it until we’re sure our customer base can support and is interested in earning titles in another venue. Instead we’ve opted to offer events other than agility to broaden our customer base. Another really enjoyable part of developing the business was researching and purchasing equipment. We wanted flexibility to do as many venues as we could. We created a spreadsheet with the specs for each piece of equipment in each of the venues we were serious about. We then set out on a quest to get the best quality, value, and versatility in each piece of equipment we needed. We opted to have our AKC A-frame and dogwalk made by a local contact. Since each piece was

custom, we ordered the dogwalk to AKC, NADAC, and CPE specifications and had both slatted and non-slatted interchangeable ramps made. The 9' A-frame would satisfy both AKC and CPE, but we were never able to find a good way to have both a slatted and a non-slatted surface on the A-frame. So we bought a smaller, lighter 8' A-frame for NADAC and surfaced it with their preferred rubberized surface. We spent considerable hours learning the wonders of PVC mass production, making a total of 30 single jumps, 15 pairs of wings, 22 hoops, a double, a triple, and a panel. As our garage filled to bursting, each piece put us a little closer to being a viable agility business. Relationship Building We are active members of the local AKC-affiliate club and we worked to further develop that relationship. They

are now a major client, renting the building one night per week for club members to train. To date, they have hosted three AKC trials in the building with plans to move all four of their annual trials to the building. We believe the relationship has been mutually beneficial. We knew several local trainers who, like us, had full-time day jobs but who wanted to pursue a part-time career in training. Ultimately two of them joined together and rented the building one night a week, dividing it in half for obedience classes in the front and agility classes in the rear. The Dog Center maintains the listings for all our services in the local phone directory and provides frequent referrals to both trainers. It was always our intention to have more dog sports than just agility in the building. So far we have a local

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51

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Clean Run - October 2010

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