Gemma Hanekom acai (1st class)

Gemma lives with Nic her hubby in Thatcham in Berkshire and has been involved with dogs almost all her life she grew up learning how to train and teach dogs using various methods.

Recently Gemma took the Agility Club Instructors examination and passed with a First Class!

She owns and trains her own Border Collies; Boo & Hoax, but has been involved with many other breeds throughout her life. In fact her first agility dog was a Golden Retriever. Gemma has been involved in agility for about 12 years and competes regularly in agility shows throughout the country.

With her dogs, Gemma has qualified for Crufts for many years in Breed, Flyball, agility etc and keeps updated on new training methods by attending training days hosted by other trainers, attending seminars and competitions. Gemma and Boo have done very well so far, winning 12 Novice Classes and two Opens and two Intermediate classes making them Advanced, which is the highest agility level. Gemma and Boo also won the Dogs In Need Novice Final is 2005 and came 2nd in the 2005 Olympia Novice Agility Stakes. You can see them competing on video here and even more here. They also won the Senior Supadogs Final 2005 and won the Pedigree Olympia Semi Finals in July 2005, qualifying the pair for Olympia again. Boo also recently won the Dogs In Need Senior Final 2006.

Nic Hanekom

Nic lives in Thatcham Berks, but grew up in sunny South Africa. He has always owned dogs and got heavily involved in training them when he moved to the UK around 5 years ago.

Nic owns two Border Collies. His oldest is a red tri called Kaos whom he didn't take on until about two years ago. Kaos was very unmotivated when Nic took him on but has gone on to win out of Elementary, Starters and now has a win towards Senior. Not bad for a 'ploddy dog'! Linx is Nics youngster and at 2 years old is a very green Novice dog. Linx is small, compact and so powerful and is a tight worker. He is very high drive but is starting to get it together and is proving to be a stunning natural dog.

Nic has qualified for many finals including Supadogs 2004 & 2005 Finals, The Agility Club Starters Dog of the year, First Contact 2005 Finals and Genesis Novice Finals 2006, He also won The Agility Eye SE Starter dog division, The First Contact 2005 Final and came 2nd in the prestigious Agility Voice Starter league for 2005.