Agility Competition Paperwork (2023 update)

A few years ago I wrote a blog post about the paperwork you need to do before entering your first agility competition. A few things have changed since then, so here’s an up-to-date version with everything you need to know.

Step Zero: Check Your Dog’s Birthday

Your dog must be at least 18 months old to enter any agility show.

Step 1: Join a Dogs NZ Affiliated Club

For most people this is an easy one. If the club you train at holds shows, and you’re a current member there, you’re covered.

There are a couple of non-affiliated clubs I’m aware of, in more sparsely populated parts of the country. If you’ve been training at one of these, or you’ve been training on your own, you’ll need to find a club to join. I generally recommend joining the nearest one (even if that is several hours’ drive away) as you may have access to members-only seminars or other events there.

Technically this is optional if you are going to enter a ribbon trial for your first show – but I recommend doing it anyway, as you’ll likely find the members very welcoming and supportive on the big day.

Step 2: Join Dogs New Zealand

Ideally your first show would be at a ribbon trial – a smaller, less formal show that is designed to help people dip their toes into the competition water. One of the benefits of starting at a ribbon trial is that you don’t have to join Dogs NZ, so it’s much cheaper. If you are planning to enter a ribbon trial first, you can skip ahead to Step 3.

Each club holds at least one ribbon trial a year, but sometimes you might have to wait months for one to come up near you. A lot of new competitors make their debut at a championship show instead. Champ shows attract more entries and cost more to enter, but they aren’t as scary as they sound, so don’t be put off entering just because you think you aren’t good enough. Discuss it with your instructor, and if they think you’re ready to compete, give it a go!

Dogs NZ charges an annual subscription, which is currently $123.50 for your first year (this includes a joining fee so it will be a few dollars cheaper when you renew). You can join online here.

Everyone who wants to handle a dog at a champ show, or who owns a dog that is entered in a champ show, must be a Dogs NZ member. That means that if you share a dog with your partner, and you both want to have a go at competing, you both need to be members. The good news is that there is a cheaper rate for multiple members from the same household.

Step 2.5: Register Your Dog with Dogs NZ

Pedigree Dogs

If your dog came with pedigree papers from Dogs NZ (formerly known as the NZ Kennel Club), you can skip this step. But you do need to hunt down your dog’s registration certificate and check who is listed as the owner. All owners that are listed on the dog’s certificate need to be current financial Dogs NZ members when the dog is entered in a champ show. If your spouse/partner/whoever is also listed on the papers, and doesn’t want to handle the dog, use this form to transfer the ownership into your name only.

You might notice a clause on your dog’s registration papers that says “Not to be shown”. Don’t worry about this – it only applies to conformation shows, not to agility and other sports.

Non-Pedigree Dogs

If your dog didn’t come with papers, you will need to pay a one-off fee to register him on the obedience/dog training/limited/sports register (all terms that are used interchangably for added confusion). Here is the form to do that. Two things you should know:

• You can make up a fancy name for your dog if you want to. Two of the most creative show names I’ve seen are “Mya My Friesian” (for a black/white Border Collie called Mya that liked to chew grass) and “Sophabulus Diva” (for a dog called Sophie). Or if you’re not feeling creative, you can just use your dog’s everyday name.
• You do not have to wait until you get your membership number before you submit this form. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do not wait for your membership details to come in the post. This can take 2 weeks, or even longer during school holidays. So many newcomers miss out on a show they had hoped to enter – or even multiple shows – because they wait to submit their dog’s registration form. Just write “Applied for” in the membership number field, and email it in on the same day that you apply to join – the email address is at the bottom of the form. If the deadline for your first show is looming, politely mention that in your email, as otherwise you might not get a response until the snail mail certificate makes its way to you.

Unfortunately most Dogs NZ forms aren’t fillable PDFs that you can fill out with a standard PDF reader. However, there are other tools that you can use to write directly on the PDF rather than having to print it, fill it out and email it. I use a Google Drive extension called DocuHub, which is free for light use.

Step 3: Get Your Dog’s Permanent Agility Number

Now you’ll be using the dogagility.org.nz website. This is the website of the Dogs NZ Agility Committee, and has lots of goodies including a calendar of upcoming events.

You need to register your dog first, and then you can set up a login for yourself using the email address you already provided. The website will allocate a permanent number to your dog, which you will need to use to enter a show.

You should get your permanent number before you get your dog officially measured, so that the measure can be recorded correctly. Just make your best guess as to what jump height group your dog will be in – ask your instructor if you’re not sure.

If you compete in the Auckland/Waikato/BoP region, you’ll also want to set up a login on the showsec.co.nz website, which is the online entries system that most clubs in that part of the country use. Clubs further south use the online entries system that is built into the dogagility.org.nz website.

Step 4: Get Your Dog Measured

Your dog doesn’t need to be measured before you enter a show – sometimes this just isn’t possible before the closing date – but you should make an effort to arrange a measure before the show. Sometimes if you’re in a more remote part of the country, or you don’t have enough measurers at your club, you’ll need to get your dog measured on the day instead, but this should be a last resort.

If you are do need to get your dog measured on show day, I recommend contacting some of the measurers who are entered in the show first (both the showsec and dogagility websites display a list of these) and giving them a heads-up before the show. Measurers are ordinary agility folk who also compete with their own dogs and help at the show (especially if it’s their own club’s show), so it can be quite hard to track them down on the day if you don’t make plans in advance.

I’ve already written another post about measuring which explains what will happen on the day, and one about how to train your dog to stand nicely for the measure.

Step 5: Enter Your Show, and Have Fun!

See my other posts about:

• What to enter at your first show
• What to pack for your first show
• What happens at agility show – outside the ring and inside the ring