agility.

WoofBC, Flickr Cute Pet Name: Gromit Location: Massachusetts Age: 3 years Dog Breed: Border collie Favorite Toy: Tennis ball. Favorite Treat: String cheese. Likes: Retrieving, swimming, agility, meeting new dogs and people. Dislikes: Baths. Fun Fact: Gromit is a tricolored border collie with freckles. He has green eyes with a blue chip in his left eye. Weird Quirk: Gromit is obsessed with tennis balls and can find them almost anywhere. Congratulations to our submitter, WoofBC. If you'd like to submit your pet, upload your favorite pet photos to our Flickr pool! More Cute Pets ...

Nacthfrost13, Flickr Cute Pet Name: Blue Velvets Pixipan, called "Paula" Location: Bonn, Germany Age: 4 years Dog Breed: Australian shepherd Favorite Toy: Frisbee. Likes: Activities such as agility, obedience, Dogfrisbee, running. Dislikes: Taking orders. Weird Quirk: She doesn't know the meaning of the word calm. Congratulations to our submitter, Nachtfrost13. If you'd like to submit your pet, upload your favorite pet photos to our Flickr pool! More Cute Pets ...

Pam Vojtas "After 125 years, American Kennel Club opens competitions to mutts," reports the Washington Post. Not all events of course -- your mixed-breed pooch won't be sharing the show ring during the beauty competitions, but your mutt can prove what he's made of in the skill contests. The American Kennel Club, which has been celebrating the best of purebred canines since 1884, has relaxed its standards a bit, creating a new option for owners of mixed breed dogs called AKC Canine Partners. Paw Nation got the scoop on the new program which allows dogs, regardless of fancy pedigree (or lack thereof), to participate in AKC Rally, Agility and Obedience competitions. We talked with Pam Vojtas, ...

There are some really obscure sports out there -- Curling, Bocce Ball, Jai Alai, Ice Hockey -- but today, Paw Nation has a sport so obscure that you'd think it was just made up by some bored Europeans in the eighties. Oh wait, it was! Small animal agility competitions (for rats, gerbils, hamsters, rabbits, etc.) are growing in popularity every day. In fact, by the end of this decade, there may be as many as 20 people in the world who participate in them. Small animal agility expert Marna Kazmaier, host of several animal websites, such as The Agilerat and Gerbil Agility, and owner of a kennel/ranch where she and her husband, Deron, train all sorts of animals including Siberian Huskies, spoke ...