WAO 2023 JUDGES

I grew up in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia on Canada’s East Coast, but now live in Saint-Lazare, QC (just outside of Montreal) with my wife Elisabeth, our 3 kids, 6 dogs, 1 cat, 1 parrot, and 2 ponies.

I’ve always been involved in sports (hockey, tennis, baseball, etc.), and I found agility when my wife joined a canine club in our home town in Nova Scotia – I was instantly hooked.  I’ve been competing in agility for nearly 15 years.  Since 2013, I’ve won Regional, National and World Championships with my border collie Crash and have had the honour of representing Canada on the international stage 15 times at various world championships (as a competitor) and was also Team Captain for Canada at the European Open team in 2017.

I took up judging in 2014 and have been enjoying it ever since.  I truly love the art of course design and presenting competitors with fun and challenging courses.  I’ve had the opportunity to judge in both Canada & the USA at both qualifying trials as well as Cups which help determine the selection for Canada’s WAO team each year.

I am extremely honoured to have the opportunity to judge at this wonderful event and I thank the organizing committee for extending the invitation.  Best of luck to all competitors!

Jason began training his first agility dogs when he was just 6 years old, and has since competed with a variety of breeds in all the available heights. He has competed at champ level at UK Agility shows with his rescue dog Chip, and has also competed at the UK Agility Grand Finals.

Jason began judging in 2012, but he began judging at more prestigious events such as the UKA Masters Series, the UKA Grand Finals, and the British Agility Championships at the beginning of 2017. In 2019, he looks forward to judging many more similar events, amongst many other shows, competitions and league matches. In January 2017, Jason became a Global Judging Programme Approved Judge.

In addition to his passion for competing and judging, Jason enjoys being a full-time agility instructor, coaching handlers from entry level to Grade 7 at Celestine Dog Training near Bristol. He believes that this everyday involvement with agility helps him to set fair and challenging courses, both when teaching, and when judging.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to judge the World Agility Open 2023, I am really happy about that.

First of all I would like to introduce myself. My name is Petr Pupík, I am 37 years old and I live in a small village, Kunice, close to Brno with my wife, son and two Tollers.

I started doing agility 14 years ago with my Beagle Tim. Now I have 12 year old Jenny and 4 years old “puppy” Tulla.

I became a judge 9 years ago. In 2017 I judged the Agility World Championship in the Czech Republic. Thanks to this I have had the opportunity to judge in 27 countries around the world. From all the competitions I have judged I would like to mention the Junior open Agility world championship (2022),  Moravia Open (2017, 219), Norwegian Open (2016, 2018), Avallon cup (2017), Dania cup (2017), Sextouples Euskadi (2018), Hulahopp Sweden (2018), Hungarian Open (2018), Magna Racina (2020), Slovenian open (2021), RAF (2022), Prague agility party (2022) and National championships and the tryouts for European Open and Agility World Championship in many countries.

As a judge I like designing and building fast fluent courses with technical parts, on which you can see a real connection between handlers and their dogs. You can see some of my courses below.

Thank you very much and I am really looking forward to WAO 2023! I hope we will enjoy this nice competition together.