Ken Tatsch Reflects on the Birth of USDAA

Introducing dog agility to North America

This article was originally published in the February 2026 OVERview digital magazine.

Ken's Introduction to Agility: Peter Lewis and the Crufts Dog Show

In 1985, Ken Tatsch traveled to London for a meeting with Lloyd’s of London on behalf of a proposed pet insurance venture. At the time, he was a CPA working on the startup at the request of a college buddy. Dogs were already part of his life: he had begun obedience training and competition with his first dog in 1980. So, while in England, he timed the trip so he could visit the Crufts Dog Show. Crufts is an international dog show held annually since 1891 and the largest show of its kind in the world.

There he saw dog agility for the first time and met Peter Lewis, an organizer and competitor in the event. “I was personally fascinated and could see the close working relationship of competitors with their dogs,” Ken recalled. “I couldn’t help but notice the exuberance from the audience as each competitor ran and how much more exciting this would be than obedience. I thought how the sport could draw attention for promoting pet health in the United States.”

The insurance venture never launched. The savings and loan crisis dried up venture capital funding, and Ken returned to public accounting after more than three years of working on the project. But his interest in agility stayed with him. On his own time and at his own expense, he built obstacles, invited others to train and searched for opportunities to demonstrate the sport — working without sponsors, infrastructure or any assurance it would go anywhere. Dog agility was still in its infancy and finding its way in Europe and elsewhere around the globe.

Sandra Davis and Early Development of USDAA

“Through Peter, I was connected with Sandra Davis, who had independently built agility equipment and shared similar interests,” Ken said. In the summer of 1985, Ken drove some 700 miles to El Paso, Texas, to meet her. “For a weekend, we trained, compared ideas and agreed to pursue something unprecedented: a true agility competition in the United States, planned for November of the following year at a Gaines obedience event in Houston.”

 

Peter Lewis and Sandra Davis

With more than a year to prepare, they worked steadily to build interest, but spreading the word was not so easy in the 1980s. “This was before email, websites or online video,” Ken explained. “Our communications relied entirely on newspapers, long-distance phone calls, fax machines, mailed letters and even cassette tapes that Peter sent from England to explain rules and course concepts.” Progress was slow and uncertain.

As the event approached, they decided to introduce the newly conceptualized United States Dog Agility Association^® (USDAA^®) as organizer of the event, featuring teams from Dallas (Dog Agility Working Group) and El Paso (Agility Dogs of El Paso Texas). Gaines provided three time slots over three days for their competition. During that first event, the Houston Kennel Club invited them to return in July 1987 to host an agility competition ahead of Best in Show at the Astro World Series of Dog Shows, a major AKC cluster in the Southwest.

“At that point, Sandra decided to step back to focus on her own training goals and advised me to carry on with my plans to grow dog agility,” Ken said. Interest continued to build. Dozens of inquiries arrived from across the country following the event, adding to the more than 100 names and addresses collected at the 1986 event. “Then I faced the challenge of growing a national sport while rebuilding an accounting career and supporting a family,” he added.

Demo Team and Kal Kan/Pedigree Sponsorship

After more than two years of demonstrations and team members personally hauling equipment each Sunday to the local park for training, the July 1987 Houston event took place. Teams from Dallas and Houston competed, with Sandra providing the courses. The event proved to be a critical step forward.

Demo team, L to R: Ken Tatsch , Stuart Mah, Sharon Nelson, Felicia Whalen, JC Thompson

A few months later, a representative from Kal Kan who had attended the Houston competition proposed to Ken the idea of hosting a sponsored agility event at the 1988 Astro World Series of Dog Shows in August — with less than six months to prepare. They would provide some money for the material cost and branding of some obstacles, along with some travel assistance for those willing to travel from greater distances. The event would offer an afternoon seminar provided by an event organizer from the U.K., as well as run a competition each day that would loosely replicate the Crufts format, with a class before Best in Show. The final event would debut as the Pedigree^® Grand Prix of Dog Agility^®. To be sure it worked the way they wanted, they asked Ken to travel to the U.K. to visit with trainers and organizers at a couple of events.

A Turning Point for Dog Agility

The turn of events in 1988 forced a personal crossroads for Ken: remain in public accounting with a somewhat predictable and assured future or take the risk of building a sport. “I returned to Dallas and began rearranging my schedule. I mailed letters to people on my mailing list to announce the 1988 event. Just over 100 responded, and 79 competitors from 21 states ultimately attended — most from Texas and Louisiana,” he said. The event was a success, but the sport’s future remained uncertain.

1988 first Grand Prix of Dog Agility^®: front, S. Swedburg-Soloman, Joyce Zmek, J. Brown; back, E. Eric Smethurst, Ken Tatsch, Norman Hills, Dave Ray

With a significant expansion of support from the prior year, 1989 would include several seminars and regional qualifying events leading to the second Pedigree Grand Prix of Dog Agility. Each year that followed, the budget increased, and Ken worked with Pedigree to tweak the plan while investing steadily in USDAA’s infrastructure.

Pedigree worked in tandem with USDAA to promote dog agility, integrating the sport into other avenues that would give it a vast amount of exposure through the 1990s, both domestically and abroad. Most notably, they fielded teams for the World Dog Show from 1991 through 1996 and provided demonstrations and events in conjunction with major three-day equestrian events, the Pan American Games and the International Arabian Horse Show.

Those demonstrations proved to be very successful, and the equestrian audiences were prime recruiting territory for agility. When the equine and canine worlds crossed paths, doors opened for everyone and those results are still evident today, as you will see in the February 2026 issue of the OVERview digital magazine. 

Read more about the history of USDAA.