It's time for the FCI Agility World Championships!

The FCI Agility World Championships get underway Friday in Helsinki, Finland. This event is one of the top dog agility events in the World - a not to be missed event. Many top dogs from 34 countries will be competing during the three day event.

The schedule for the event is as follows: (With event, time, and judge listed)

Friday 26.9.
Opening ceremony 8:00
Jumping team large ~ 9:30 Anne Savioja
Jumping team small ~ 12:00 Allan Hansen
Jumping team medium ~ 14:20 Anne Savioja
Agility team large ~ 16:30 Allan Hansen

Saturday 27.9.
Jumping individual small 8:00 Anne Savioja
Jumping individual medium ~ 10:00 Allan Hansen
Jumping individual large ~ 12:00 Allan Hansen
Agility team small ~ 15:20 Anne Savioja
Agility team medium ~ 18:10 Allan Hansen

Sunday 28.9.
Agility individual, medium, judge 8:00 Anne Savioja
Agility individual, small, judge ~ 10:30 Allan Hansen
Agility individual, large, judge ~ 12:40 Anne Savioja
Prize giving and closing ceremony ~ 16:30

Team USA, whose members qualified back in May at the AKC World Team Tryouts will be on hand. You can see all the results of the qualifications here.

2008 AKC/USA Team

Back row, left to right: Joan Meyer, Melanie Del Villaggio, Marcy Mantell, Dee Anna Gamel, Ann Braue, Carrie Jones, Karen Holik, Paulette Swartzendruber, Ashley Deacon, Joel Lavalley
Front row, left to right: Geri Hernandez, Linda Mecklenburg, Marcus Topps (Photo courtesy of the American Kennel Club)

Here are the running orders for the event: (Additional competitor information is here)

Running order Individual Small (pdf)
Running order Individual Medium (pdf)
Running order Individual Large (pdf)

Running order Team Small (pdf)
Running order Team Medium (pdf)
Running order Team Large (pdf)

If you live in or around Helsinki, be sure and attend the event, you'll be glad you did. Ticket information can be obtained here.

Eric Larson owner of Agility Video Service will be reporting live from the event in a couple of ways; although mostly for Team USA and Team Canada.

Through Eric's site you will be able to view news, course maps, and photos here! And you can get instant texts/messages from Eric via Twitter (an instant messaging system he will be utilizing throughout the event). Follow these instructions to receive these messages via your phone. Or to receive Twitter messages via the web, sign up for Twitter here. Once you have an account with Twitter go to this page and 'follow' Eric.

We also hope that Guy Blancke at Smooth Moves Agility will be showing us some great video of the event. Check his website for info during the event. You can see some of his vids from last year here.

And the AKC website will have updates throughout the event!

For last year's event information visit here!

We will be reporting some information from the event this weekend. However it will be limited as we will be out of town at an agility trial. The minute we get back each day we will be at our computer desks checking out all the results and report them to you. But keep an eye on Eric's site, and sign up for his Twitter updates to keep up on the latest action!

Here are some other sites online with the event, thanks to our friend Hugo at Just Agility:

Aurea - Agility
Agility br Agility br
Blog Marta Pires Blog Marta Pires
Agiliteiros.com Agiliteiros.com

To get you all warmed up for the big event, here's a little best of video: