Nice, flowing routines from Japan

Several advanced routines, including the amazing Attila Szkukalek and his Border Collie, Fly

Andrea Conrad and Paco in Germany; some lengthy, advanced routines.
On another page, routines by a number of Andrea's students, all ages including children and freestylers in wheelchairs. This is a nice range of beginner level routines.

Carolyn Scott and Rookie perform their now world famous routine to Grease

Mary Ray, a pioneer of Heelwork to Music in Great Britain, performing with up to four dogs at a time

Beginner routine from Australia

Richard Curtis

Routine with two people and one dog

Videos and Books

Training videos
A good variety of videos by Attila Szkukalek, Richard Curtis, and Mary Ray; as well as a book by Donelda Guy available through Musical Dog Sport Association.

Sandra Davis training videos and book
Several excellent training videos plus a book that covers the material in all the videos. Sandra invented the newest style of freestyle: K9 Dressage by Sandra Davis.

Freestyle Moves

Canine Freestyle Moves Database
Includes diagrams.

Canine Freestyle Skills
Some of the core freestyle skills are described, along with suggested voice and body cues.

Table of movements
A system, developed in the UK, for tracking your progress as you learn.

Freestyle Stories

Musical Dog Sport Association has a lovely collection of freestyle anecdotes

One of the stories:

My favorite freestyle memory is..... watching a very old lady and her dog move in a video clip. They where slow but very graceful. The little dog looked up with such love and devotion at the handler that I did not care what moves they did. They continued their wonderful dance and ended with both of them doing a slight bow. I do not think there was a dry eye in the audience. They got a standing ovation.

I have seen many a freestyle routines since then but none that have effected me as much. It helps reminds me that everytime I do freestyle with my dog, it is not all the fancy moves you both do, it is the bond of love between the handler and the dog that is most important!

Nancy Shurts

World Canine Freestyle Organization
WCFO holds live competitions throughout the year, as well as video competitions on a quarterly basis. Titles begin with W-FD (Freestyle Dog), judged on the basis of technical merit and artistic impression, which is awarded for qualifying scores in two performances. As dog and handler develop as a team, they can earn additional titles.

Videos are judged exactly the same way as live competitions. There are important technical details to observe, so the video tips should be studied ahead of time. It appears overwhelming at first, but once you understand it, it only takes minutes to set everything up correctly for a successful video shoot. No point going to all that trouble and being disqualified because the ring size is incorrect or not properly marked!

There are two main styles with well established rules: heelwork-to-music (dog stays within 4 feet of handler) or musical freestyle (almost anything goes) guidelines. A new style, k9 dressage, was invented by Sandra Davis. WCFO offers divisions and categories for juniors and adults, seniors, and the physically challenged.

Paws 2 Dance
British Columbia based group that also holds occasional live competitions. P2D rules have been used in judging fun matches in Regina.

Freestyle Lists

World Canine Freestyle Organization
Official list for the WCFO, on Yahoo Groups.

Sonoran Canine Freestylers
Started as a local group of freestylers, but has evolved into the premiere internet freestyle training resource.

Prairie Freestyle
Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba.

K9 DanceSport Education & Resources
Tools for Teachers Conference, presented by K9 DanceSport Education & Resources.

K9 DanceSport Yahoo! Group
Event calendar listing events put on by all major freestyle organizations.

Software

Download music from the internet with KaZaA Lite, available free from www.Nonags.com. Always follow standard internet safety procedures when file sharing, i.e. have and use current anti-virus protection and a firewall. Be sure to use the version of the program from Nonags, NOT Kazaa.com. The other version comes with spyware that will be difficult to remove from your computer.

Music Editing
Musicmatch Jukebox is useful not only for listening to music, but it can convert mp3's (songs the way they are when you download them) into other formats as needed. Nero Wave Editor is handy for shortening music to a suitable length for freestyle routines. You can download a full free trial version of Nero. There is also a free music editing program called Audacity.

Meet Johanne's K9 furKIDS