Australia vs UK agility with Matisse Martin

What's different about the agility culture there? Is it just the training or is it the dogs or is it the handling? What are the major differences?

Yeah, I think the training styles are a little bit different, but I think Australia will get there.

We're just a little bit behind.

And I always put that down to lack of access to trainers because of Australia, we are so isolated.

Dogs-wise, I think Australia is getting really good.

We've started breeding some really cool lines over in Australia now.

There's definitely a lot more sports mixes here.

So border paps are huge.

Every man and his dog has a border pap over here at the moment.

And Shelties, there's some really cool Sheltie lines in England.

But yeah, I think dogs-wise, Australia is getting there.

They're importing more dogs that are from really cool lines.

The show culture is very different here.

So alternatively to Australia, summer is their, you know, competing season and winter is the off season.

Whereas, or at least where I live in Queensland, it's the opposite because it's too hot in summer to do anything.

Um, so yeah, the, the summer show season is quite different, um, where it shows every weekend camping and the grade structure is quite different.

Um, there's seven grades here as opposed to, to three, you know, novice, excellent masters.

There's seven grades to work up here.

There's a lot more qualifiers for events such as like crafts, Olympia, um, championship rounds.

I just, the, the structure of, um, The levels is quite different.

And yeah, I think since the shows are a lot more spread out, most people camp at them.

So I do like that part of the culture in that you're with these people most weekends throughout summer.

So you do get quite close with them.

You know, it's different to in Brisbane, at least most of the trials, you know, you drive to it, you do the trial and you drive home.

So you don't get that like, you know, bonding with your group of friends as much.