About 900 dogs competed in the 2014 Cynosport World Games at the OSC
Published in the Oct. 29 – Nov. 11, 2014 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Marty Cheek
Photo by Marty Cheek
A canine competitor runs through a course during the 2014 Cynosport World Games held at the Outdoor Sports Center.
Nearly 900 canine competitors from 11 nations poured into Morgan Hill’s Outdoor Sports Center to participate in the 2014 Cynosport World Games, the Olympics in dog agility sports held Oct. 15 to 19. And joining them were dogs from the South Valley region whose owners took them to the competition to introduce them to agility courses.
Among the competitors was Chase, a black Labrador who enjoyed chasing a toy thrown by his human teammate Rich Ruggals into a pool of water to see how far he could jump. Ruggals, a retired San Jose fireman who now lives in El Dorado Hills, said this is the second year Chase has competed and he qualified last month for the nationals in Reno.
Morgan Hill’s OSC provided an “awesome” venue for the Cynosport World Games, he said.
“I remember coming here as a child. My aunt and uncle had a house at Holiday Lake Estates, and I came here in the 1960s and saw this as rural land and orchards here and seeing this event here — a world class event — I think it’s a great venue,” he said. “I know that they rotate the agility thing throughout the country, but this is really a feather in the cap for Morgan Hill.”
Also participating in the splash dog pool was Eileen Harnedy and her 6-year-old Belgium Shepherd named Xita. Harnedy drove up in a recreational vehicle from Atascadero to compete. She took up the sport because Xita needed a physically-demanding activity to channel her energy.
“She’s super driven, she’s super high energy, so she needs a lot of focused attention from her person to keep her under direction,” she said. “This breed needs a job. If you don’t give them a job, they’re miserable and they’ll make you miserable.”
Like Ruggals, Harnedy was impressed with the quality of the OSC for the competition, which is put on by the United States Dog Agility Association, based in Richardson, Texas.
Photo by Marty Cheek
Chase, a black labrador, retrieves a ball thrown into a pool by his owner Rich Ruggals, a retired San Jose firefighter, during the Cynosport World Games, the Olympics of dog agility. The competition took place Oct. 15-19 at Morgan Hill’s Outdoor Sports Center.
“The facility is fantastic and the weather is good. It’s great to run on the soccer fields and the turf is fantastic,” she said. “The facility is really well suited for what they’re doing (with the competition). I hope it comes back here.”
Two spectators at the competition were 6-year-old Ella Ireland and her 3-year-old sister Taylor Ireland who spent a few hours Sunday watching the dogs compete.
“I like the dogs because they do tricks,” Ella said. “They jumped off the dock and they flew into the water. I enjoyed that.”
The girl’s grandmother, Terry Moriyama, a RE/MAX real estate agent in Morgan Hill and the founder of the Air for Paws program that provides pet resuscitation equipment, said she was impressed by the dog athletes participating in the obstacle courses and the splash dog events.
“My dogs won’t have anything to do with this kind of stuff. They’re couch potatoes,” she said with a laugh. “It’s amazing, It’s neat that Morgan Hill is hosting this.”
Organizing the Doggie Do Right Dog Agility 101 course was Tiffanie Moyano, a San Jose resident involved with the A New Tail Animal Rescue nonprofit organization based in San Jose. The course raised money for the Shelter Dog Project that pulls dogs from Santa Clara County shelters who have physical issues and might not easily find a home and helps them get adopted.
“Agility 101 is where we’re trying to get the general public to get informed about agility and have some fun and see if their dogs like it,” Moyano said. “It’s $5 per run and all the money goes to our nonprofit.”
A dog jumps into the Splash Dog tank. Photo by Marty Cheek
In agility competition, the human handler and the dog work through a series of obstacles — such as jumps, tunnels, shoots, A-frames and teeter-totters — as they go through a course. They’re judged not just on how fast they can get through the course but the accuracy of completing all the obstacles. The handler can not touch the dog but guides the canine friend through the course with a series of hand gestures and verbal commands.
“It’s a lot about teamwork,” Moyano said. “It’s a lot about building that relationship with your dog and working together as a team to complete all the obstacles in a fast time.”
The sport began as a half-time show in England at horse jumping tournaments, she said.
About 20 vendors held canopied stalls to sell their dog-friendly products at the competition. Among them was Christine Garlick, the customer service and events manager at Petcurian, a pet food company based in Chilliwack, British Columbia. Petcurian was a major sponsor of this year’s Cynosport games, she said.
“I’d been looking for a really cool sporting dog event for us to be a part of and Sandra, my colleague, competes in agility and she suggested looking at the big competitions that compete in agility,” Garlick said. “It seemed like a really good fit. They’re really interested in promoting dogs and activity and Petcurian is really all about the love of pets, so it seemed like a really good fit for us — and who can resist coming down to Morgan Hill in October?”
Her first time in Morgan Hill, she was impressed by the rural tranquility of the South Valley region as well as how local people have treated her and her Petcurian team.
“The drive from the (San Jose) airport was beautiful,” she said. “I have to tell you that since we arrived, everyone has been so welcoming. Everybody from the folks at Staples and Starbucks and Five Guys Burgers have been so friendly. We’re staying at the Hampton Inn just down the street from here, and we can’t say enough about those guys, they’re bending over backwards since before we walked in the door.”
The USDAA’s Heather Smith, an event planner for the Cynosport games, agreed that Morgan Hill proved a good venue for the competitors and spectators who came to watch the dogs. The rural surroundings and the good quality of the city’s restaurants added to the ambiance, she said. A crew of Live Oak High School students helped out with the event to earn service hours for the civic class credits, she said.
The USDAA decided a couple of years ago to hold its 2014 championship dog agility games after several of its officers visited the city and had a tour with Jeff Dixon, president of the Morgan Hill Youth Sports Alliance which operates the OSC. Various factors influenced the decision, but among the biggest was the ample artificial turf, she said.
“The competitors like to run their dogs on the same surface in all the rings,” Smith said. “When we went to Denver, we had three rings on turf and three rings on grass. Well, there is a difference in the way the dog runs. Grass wears out during the day. If you have 300 people running the same course on grass, it’s going to be different when the 300th person steps on it as opposed to the first. With turf you don’t have that. It’s going to be uniform throughout the day. You don’t get ruts, you don’t get worn spaces, you don’t get slick spaces.”
There was also plenty of room for the 23 tent kennels in the northeast corner of the OSC, she said.
OSC general manager David Payne was impressed with how well the USDAA took care of the details of the event.
“It went smoothly. It wasn’t their first rodeo,” he said. “There was a little bit of concern about preserving the turf, and they worked around that…. They totally respected the facility and did everything we asked for.”
The Cynosport international competition and other recent events have proved that the OSC can be used for more than just soccer games, he said.
“We’ve shown not just our ability to have a concert here (the Kinhcert last October), and we’re hoping to have another one, but the hosting of the Fourth of July and other non-traditional sports,” he said. “We just had a Kid Fest a while back. We’re starting to get people calling us and asking about the facility because they saw it on TV.”
The Cynosport games had economic benefit for Morgan Hill, bringing in an estimated $2 million to Morgan Hill businesses such as shops, restaurants and hotels
“I have no way of calculating (the revenue), but clearly there were business people throughout town were getting the benefit of the event,” Payne said.
