31/05/2026
🌟 Meet the Team - Vice President 🌟
Hi I’m Natalie, I’ve been around agility since about 2015 when I was looking for something fun to do with my young (psycho!) dog Kiki. She is a Pomeranian, so I tried it out purely to see what it was about and was expecting to have a dog that wasn’t that enthusiastic about it. Wrong. She loved it, and this resulted in me enjoying it too and later getting Brodie, a 7 year old heading dog, and recently Twix, a 3 year old border collie x spitz. Both of these dogs are competing at various levels of untrained-ness. Kiki is now 13 and enjoying retiree family life.
I first competed with Kiki 8 years ago, she was 5, after some disrupted training attempts at various clubs before we were welcomed in by WAG. I was conned into joining committee not long after that, so I’ve probably been on committee 6 or 7 years (Caitlin would be the only one that would actually remember the real timeline - her memory is amazing). I am vice-president for the second year, after 3 years of being president. The vice president role is a nice way for me to be involved, support the club and Caitlin as president, but also a step back from presidential duties as family life has taken priority in recent years.
I have 2 small humans which have robbed me of some of my dog training time, free time and time for hobbies. They are 3 and 18 months old. I try to fit in some dog shows when I can but it’s become more of a juggle and I’ve been more selective about which ones I can realistically get to these days. I would like to do more hiking in the bush, and I wish more of the local bush areas allowed dogs so if you know of some good ones - share the secret spots with me.
I work at a company called the bioeconomy science institute (we were called AgResearch until January this year), and my role there is as a researcher focusing on animal behaviour and welfare in agricultural systems. It’s nice to have an animal focused job that also has a farming focus as I come from a farming background and my whole family are farmers.
This year I hope to actually train Twix to weave 😂 she’s slowly getting it but I’m definitely lacking in the training and dedication department. I have put zero pressure on myself to have well trained agility dogs, and I see agility as my chance to go have some fun and do something different for a day, or weekend.
So naturally, my advice to you all is to have fun! Agility is a game with your best friend. There is an amazing bond formed between dog and handler and no matter how the training or the runs or the show goes, you get to take home that pup who’s whole world is you, and the life you’ve given it. Celebrate the small wins, even if those are as simple as keeping a rail up, getting the blind cross in, or even making it to training.
Hopefully see you all out there, at shows and training, doing better than me - as I’ll be still trying to find time and motivation to train those weaves… 😊
