Have a Blast at this Annual Florida Agility Event!
What’s more fun than doing agility with your dog? Doing agility with your dog as part of a team! Every year at the end of June, the Dog Agility Competition of Florida (DACOF) holds a team agility competition where people and pups from all around Florida form teams to compete for fun and trophies. These teams are formed by local training clubs or trainers, or by facilities that house agility trials. But competing in teams isn’t the only thing that makes DACOF special and fun. Each team adopts a theme and decorates their crating area accordingly. Most of the teams also dress themselves up and sometimes their dogs. I can’t remember the last time I had this much fun as an adult!
In June 2025, my cattle dog, Josie, and I completed our second DACOF as a team member of the Brevard County Dog Training Club (BCDTC). This weekend event has become one of the things that I most look forward to during the year.
Despite what you might be imagining, team agility does not involve chaos in the ring as multiple dogs and handlers run through a course at the same time. Rather, you and your pup run a course like you normally would but you earn points that count toward the team score, plus your pup can get a trophy for placing in the top 3 of their level in each course.
Each team consists of up to 3 novice dogs, 3 open (mid-level) dogs, and 4 excellent/master level dogs. Over the course of two days, there are a total of 5 rounds. The two highest scores earned by dogs/handlers on your team at each level for each round count toward your team score.
What really makes this event special is the comradery between teammates. Although I can’t attest to what it’s like to be on other teams, I can tell you that the BCDTC team members were so supportive of each other. We all tried to be there to watch and cheer for each of our teammates. Successes in the ring are much more exciting when you have friends cheering you on! And when things don’t go quite right, it’s awesome to have people to talk to about it who actually understand what you’re saying.
The icing on the cake at the 2025 DACOF was that our team placed 5th this year. That’s 5th out of 37 teams! The previous year we had come in 21st, and we were just hoping to improve on that. Our entire team stayed for the award ceremony held on Sunday afternoon/evening because several of our teammates were getting individual placement trophies.
The last awards given out were for the top 5 teams. They start by announcing the team rankings, starting with number 37 and working their way up. When the 10th place team was announced and we still hadn’t heard our name, some of us were holding our breath while others had assumed that they had just missed hearing it. But then we heard them call us for the 5th place team and we all screamed in disbelief! (5th place is the lowest level to earn trophies.) As all of us ran up to get our trophies and medals, we made a bigger commotion than the 1st place team ultimately did! One thing that makes us extra proud of our placement is that agility is a sport dominated by border collies and we suceeded without having any border collies on our team.
The fun didn’t end that night. That following Wednesday, we celebrated our victory during our classes at BCDTC, and we already started discussing our DACOF theme for next year!
If you live in Florida and like to do agility with your dog, make a plan to join a team for the next Dog Agility Competition of Florida, to be held the 27th & 28th of June 2026 (with set-up and practice on June 26th) in the Silver Spurs Arena in Kissimmee. If your club or training facility doesn’t have a team, spread the word and help them form one! Don’t miss the fun!
DACOF is very encouraging of young agility handlers. They even have special awards for the best junior handler 12 and under, and for the 12-17 year old handlers. Some of these kids are amazing! If you know of any kids interested in dog training, be sure to tell them about agility; it is a sport for all ages.
3 thoughts on “Have a Blast at this Annual Florida Agility Event!”
What an awesome article! Thank you, Cathy for writing it, and including us with so many nice things being said!! Absolutely look forward to next year and many years after that.
Hi we’d love to go see dog agility show on South Florida. Can we go as spectators?
Hi Dan,
Yes, you can go as a spectator. I just saw this comment, but I responded to your message on Reddit a few days ago. However, I would like to point out that this article discusses an annual event that isn’t like other trials. Specifically, a normal trial doesn’t work in teams or have themed crating areas. If you have any more questions, feel free to message me here or an Reddit. Cathy