Agility Pioneer Continues to Champion the Sport
Alaina Axford-Moore recalls early passion for agility.
This article was originally published in the February 2026 OVERview digital magazine.
Watching today’s dogs competing in agility, speeding far ahead of their handlers to soar effortlessly over hurdles, scream across the dogwalk and eat up the weave poles at full tilt, most observers have no idea how this amazing dog sport came to be. There were the founders working to promote dog agility on a national level, and then there were key volunteers in regions across the country who worked tirelessly and traveled extensively introducing the sport to dog enthusiasts wherever they went. This was how to spread the word in the late 1980s — the days before internet, email, cell phones or Facebook!
A Chance Seminar and a Portuguese Water Dog Named Cooper
In 1987, future dog agility pioneer Alaina Axford-Moore of Pennsylvania was taking obedience classes with her Portuguese Water Dog puppy, Cooper, when the instructor told the class about an upcoming dog agility demonstration and seminar taught by an agility trainer from Kansas named Bud Kramer, and encouraged them to go.
The event was sponsored by the Dog Training Club of Chester County (DTCCC), and Alaina remembers about 15 to 20 dog and handler teams attending, four from her obedience class. The rest were members of the club who attended with a variety of breeds, including Welsh Springer Spaniel, Yorkie, Dachshund, Rottweiler, Golden Retriever and some mixed breeds. Alaina remembers the course consisted of a dogwalk, A-frame, jumps, a table, a tunnel and a chute. “That was the first time I saw agility, and Bud used my dog Cooper for some demos. Cooper was great, and I was hooked!”
After that agility demo, the DTCCC started doing Saturday morning agility training sessions outdoors at a local park, once every month or two from April through September. The equipment had to be transported, set up for the training sessions and afterwards broken down, packed up and returned, as was common in those early years. Describing the training sessions, Alaina said: “It was more like the old days of equipment familiarization, because we really didn’t know what we were doing.”
In June of 1989, Alaina attended her second agility seminar, held in a Chester County High School gymnasium and conducted by Ken Tatsch with Elizabeth Hezeau. Saturday was essentially equipment familiarization: handlers taking dogs through tunnels, over jumps and the contact obstacles. For some dogs, it was their first time seeing agility obstacles. Sunday was a Pedigree USDAA Grand Prix of Dog Agility® qualifier event with 25 teams competing, including Alaina and Cooper. She came in second place, earning an expense-paid trip to compete at the 1989 USDAA Grand Prix of Dog Agility Nationals at the Houston Astro Hall that August — where they finished in eighth place!
The Rise of the Demo Teams
About six weeks after that USDAA Nationals event, Ken called Alaina to ask if she lived near the Radnor Hunt, a large and well-known equestrian event venue in Malvern, Pennsylvania. After telling him she was just 20 minutes from Radnor, he explained that Kal Kan Pedigree was sponsoring agility demos and asked if she’d like to be on the demo team. “Yes, of course I would!” she recalls replying without pause.
In organizing that first Radnor Hunt Horse Show Agility demo in 1989, Ken invited competitors he knew from the greater East Coast region, including Alaina and members of the newly formed New England Agility Team (NEAT), founded by Jean MacKenzie (named a USDAA Pioneer of Dog Agility in 1997). Jean had participated in the first Grand Prix of Dog Agility in 1988 as the first competitor from New England. She returned home to Maine and put her skills as a carpenter to work building a set of dog agility obstacles; soon after, she formed NEAT, the first USDAA group in the New England region.
Meanwhile in Pennsylvania, Alaina received a $500 start-up check from Pedigree/Kal Kan as well as a larger loan from her dad, allowing her to buy some equipment and eventually start Keystone Agility Club. For the Radnor Hunt demo, Alaina provided some of her newly acquired equipment, while Jean, along with NEAT club members Julie Daniels, Cheryl and Ron Pitkin, and Brenda Buja, transported additional equipment all the way down from Maine to the Pennsylvania demo site.
“As more demos were organized,” Ken explained, “more top competitors were invited, with core team members drawn from different areas of the country to also include Linda Mecklenburg, Susan Garrett, Hazel and JC Thompson, Elizabeth Blanchard, Laura Yarborough, Stuart Mah and Felicia Whalen. The demo team went to large equestrian shows, mainly in the mid-Atlantic region, as well as International Arabian Horse shows in Kentucky and New Mexico.” Alaina recalls doing demos at the prestigious Fair Hill three-day event in Elkton, Maryland, for several years before USDAA started holding shows there.
The demo team would set up an agility ring somewhere on the horse show grounds, not in an actual horse show ring, and run demos consisting of full courses every few hours that were often narrated by Ken. Afterwards, for a nominal fee of $2 to $3 (donated to a local charity), sp
ectators with their dogs on lead were introduced to low obstacles, jumps and tunnels by demo team members. They would also talk up agility to spectators as well as collect people’s names and contact information to reach out in the future when a local club might be formed.
Organizing training sessions by making phone calls, hauling heavy equipment into and out of trucks and trailers, putting on demos at every opportunity and sharing the excitement of a fun new dog sport face to face with new and interested dog owners was how people contributed their time, enthusiasm and expertise to spread the word and passion for dog agility back in the day!
A True Trailblazer
Alaina is a true trailblazer in the sport of agility. In addition to competing in the very earliest Grand Prix events, being part of the USDAA East Coast demo team and the first person to ever earn a USDAA title in May of 1990 when she and Cooper got their Agility Dog® (AD) title, she was also the key founding member and first president of Keystone Agility Club (KAC) in southeastern Pennsylvania, which celebrated its 35th anniversary this year.
Moreover, Alaina is still training and competing at the highest levels, having just traveled to the 2025 Cynosport® World Games Presented by Purina® Pro Plan® with her two Border Paps! “I am so glad I got into agility in the very early days,” Alaina reflected recently. “I have seen the sport grow from something fun to do in your backyard to an amazing event on the world stage.
“Agility has affected my life positively,” she added. “I devote a lot of time to it — either teaching, being a student, running a show or working at a show. I love spending time with people who share the same passion for their dogs as I do!” Over the past 38 years, agility has also given Alaina the chance to travel all over the U.S. and Canada, and recently overseas to the Netherlands. “I have long-time agility friends all over the country whom I can go visit and reminisce with.”
Alaina is ever grateful that over three decades ago her dad “saw that this new sport called dog agility really lit me up, and he supported me, which ignited the passion I still have for agility today.”
About the Author
Author Elise Paffrath took her first agility class in 1993. Entering a local USDAA event later that year, she won Snooker, had a blast and became irreversibly hooked on the sport! She and her shelter-adopted dogs Breeze, Scout and Spryte competed heavily over the years, earning their way into the USDAA Cynosport Championship Grand Prix and Steeplechase Finals five times. She started her business, Breeze Thru Agility, in 1995 and has been teaching ever since.