About Us

Christmas 2020. Ken doing his best to contain (L to R): Salsa, Genie, Kip & Reba.

I live in Rappahannock County, Virginia, on a beautiful piece of land, with my husband Ken. He’s retired though lately he’s been working part time at a local airport (his first love is, I fear, airplanes and flying; then – I hope – I fit in somewhere).We have grown children scattered around the country, and grand-kids as well, and as of April 2013 a (OMG!) great-grandson! We’re one of those extended families – married 30+ years ago and my oldest child is, well, never mind. She’s not old, but her age makes me feel old. And Ken’s older son is close to my oldest daughter’s age. So we’re not spring chickies.

I raised Saint Bernards for many, many years before we got our first Australian Shepherd and then discovered agility. The great discovery occurred in 1994 at a bench show in Philadelphia where there was an agility demo going on. AKC was at that time in the process of incorporating agility into their performance array of events. Both Ken and I were totally captivated by the sport and began lessons shortly thereafter, and it’s all history from there.

Our Saints are gone, but we now have an Aussie mix and three Border Collies. Sometimes I stop and think, “how did this happen?” when I compare border collies to Saint Bernards.  I’m quite active, teaching agility classes at Mountain View Dog Training and competing in agility in USDAA and some AKC trials. Ken is retired from agility competition, working still as a flight instructor and playing with gliders(!)

Now, after a year into the Covid-19 invasion of our lives, I’m reviving this blog, planning to post photos of our dogs as well as those of our students; training articles; dog stories; observations, … whatever happens.

And by the way – Comments are welcome! That’s what blogs are about. One fool blathering and others giving their opinions. All comments are subject to my approval, since blogs are known to be infiltrated by the same sort of critters that get into our email and mess it up, but anything constructive or funny – or just plain-vanilla comments – are welcome and will be posted, regardless of whether I agree or not.

Averill Ring
19 February 2021