Tony has been through so much with me, I don't even know where to begin! I had just moved back up to Montana, when I went to a dog show with my mother to help her out. There was this cute litter of Sheltie puppies on the ground. My birthday was coming up and my mother decided to get one for me, as long as I paid for half!! I agreed as I really wanted another dog for my other Sheltie, Misty. So began our life together! The breeder and I both had hopes that the wonderful little bundle of sable fur would not go over the Shetland Sheepdog size standard (which is supposed to be between 13" and 16"). So the story goes that Tony became known as "Tony The Pony", in other words he kept on-a-growin'! Waaaay over the standard size, he took it to another height dimension! He grew to a whopping 20"!! So off to the vet he went to get nuetered. His hopeful days of competing in the breed ring all done!! Oh well...we had other things in mind and I still loved him all the same!

I discovered agility in 1993 but didn't ever persue it early enough for Tony. The "Agility Bug" did not get me until 1998... I took Tony to his first agility trial in 1998 when he was 8 years old. He almost qualified too!! So we went again in June of 1999 and he got his Novice Agility Title in one month and finished it out with a beautiful clean run! I will never forget that day as he tried to run back into the ring to do more!! The following October we tried NADAC, but being new at that venue we did not qualify. It was still a lot of fun!!! Sadly in December we discovered he had extra tissue growing in his wrists (creating slight pain for him) which makes it impossible to compete. It is too bad, as he loved agility so much and would still be competing to this day if it wasn't for that.