Centralia dog trainer competes in world agility competition in Belgium

Skeptic the cocker spaniel performs on the international stage

By Emily Fitzgerald / emily@chronline.com
Posted 10/23/24

“Hard work, dedication and beast mode” is the motto Centralia resident and dog trainer Sarah Baker feels best represents her 7-year-old cocker spaniel, Skeptic.

Those three …

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Centralia dog trainer competes in world agility competition in Belgium

Skeptic the cocker spaniel performs on the international stage

Posted

“Hard work, dedication and beast mode” is the motto Centralia resident and dog trainer Sarah Baker feels best represents her 7-year-old cocker spaniel, Skeptic.

Those three attributes earned Baker and Skeptic a spot on the 16-member American Kennel Club USA World Agility Team, which competed in the Fédération Cynologique Internationale (FCI) Agility World Championship in Opglabbeek, Belgium, earlier this month.

The event welcomed 705 trainer and dog teams from 46 countries around the world for six days of competition from Oct. 1 to Oct. 6.

“It was our best one so far. We had two clean runs, and our goal is to eventually be on the podium. It didn’t happen this year, but that’s OK,” Baker said of her and Skeptic’s experience at this year’s championship, where they ranked 37th out of 67.

“He was amazing. He was a really good traveler, and he was a good teammate … and he’s well liked by everybody. He’s a very nice boy,” Baker said of Skeptic.

Baker and Skeptic previously placed second at a national championship and competed in last year’s FCI Agility World Championship in the Czech Republic, where they ranked 61st out of 67 in their category.

“It’s thrilling. Being at the world championships is my goal every year,” Baker said.

Baker has been a dog trainer since 2000, starting out training guide dogs and transitioning to agility training in 2008 after she took classes from Daisy Peel and Blynn Baker.

“I just got hooked right away. It’s amazing. I love it,” Sarah Baker said of agility training.

Baker’s first coach was a member of the USA World Agility Team and helped connect Baker with one of her first two agility dogs, Rice, a Labrador, and Dillon, a rottweiler mix.

“Luckily, I was able to get good training and a dog with good genes, and … she helped me reach my goal. That’s partly how (I got involved), then just lots of hard work and dedication,” Baker said.

Rice, Dillon and border collie Hops, who was born in 2012, each won American Kennel Club champion awards in 2014, with Hops continuing on to win awards and qualify as an Team USA member for the European Open Team in 2016.

Hops was also named American Kennel Club National Agility Champion in 2016 and continued winning in world and national competitions through 2019 after Rice and Dillon retired.

“My goal from day one in agility was ‘I’m going to get a border collie and be on the world team.’ Eventually, we made that happen,” Baker said.



Both Rice and Dillon died in 2020, and Hops has retired from competition after a highly successful agility career.

Skeptic was born in England in 2017 and is the smallest dog Baker has trained, she said.

“He is by far the busiest dog I have ever had and makes us laugh every day. He has just started his agility journey and is showing lots of potential,” Baker said of Skeptic on her website. “Skeptic loves all humans, loves to play and snuggle, loves to run, hike and swim, loves nosework and agility, and loves food and tennis balls.”

As a cocker spaniel, Skeptic is naturally inclined toward hunting and nosework. “So he does not come with focus. He comes with spanieling through bushes,” Baker said.

Training him has involved “working on using toys and treats to get him to want to play with us, and teaching him rules like stays and how to jump over bars and keep the bars up, then teaching him more technical things like how to weave through the weave poles and how to do certain types of jumping, and how to do the contact obstacles,” Baker said.

In 2019, at just 22 months old, Skeptic placed sixth in the American Kennel Club World Team tryouts and placed second in the American Kennel Club European Open Team tryouts.

Baker’s youngest dog, a border collie Sapporo, was born in August 2020 and began her agility training at the end of 2021.

Sapporo is currently benched due to an injury, but Baker is already training with Skeptic for the 2025 FCI Agility World Championship in Sweden. Qualifying competitions for the championship take place in the spring.

Between all five of her agility dogs, Baker has qualified for the FCI Agility World Championship four times, the World Agility Open Team three times and the European Open Team four times.

“I love it. I’m addicted,” Baker said. “It’s years and years of dedication, but we love it.”

In addition to weekly in-person classes in Centralia, Tumwater and Castle Rock, Baker offers online coaching and classes for agility trainers and their dogs.

For more information, visit https://sarahbakeragility.com/