About Us
Mission Statement
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To educate and promote a healthy relationship between dog and handler through agility, rally,
and other dog sports and activities.
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To provide a fun, safe, and competitive environment.
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To encourage sportsmanlike conduct and comraderie.
Jan Thingelstad
Jan, Co-Owner of Dirty Dogs Sports LLC, approaches training based on building a positive relationship between the handlers and their canine partners. Jan began 32 years ago building bonds while teaching puppies and dogs how they can calmly be handled and groomed.
Along with this is 7 years as a small animal vet tech/surgical anesthesiologist and 13 years as a 4H Dog Project leader. Her expertise coaching resulted in two student trips to Florida’s Eukanuba Jr. National Obedience Championships, resulting in top placings. This experience, dedication and pride have made her a well-rounded instructor.
She gives both private and group lessons and enjoys watching the team come together and understand each other.
Jan has been successful in competing in a variety of disciplines. She has multiple Obedience titles as well as titles in Rally and Agility and qualified for the NADAC Nationals in 2018. Jan has started training in agility and herding with her new young Border Collie, Kas. Her newest endeavors are to Barn Hunt and is enjoying competing with her Mini Aussie, Josie. These two new venues, Herding and Barn Hunt add another avenue to build Jan’s personal connection with her dogs and to be able to share her knowledge with her students.
Karen McLeod
Karen, co-owner of Dirty Dogs Sports, is a lifelong trainer, teacher, and competitor in Agility, Rally, and Obedience. Her talent in Canine Communication has grown through the years and has led to many great relationships and resulted in various titles. Karen has been building human and canine partnerships for over 15 years and has had successful teams from 4H youth to adults, AKC to NADAC.
Karen has a simple philosophy of building a relationship between dog and human partners. She prides herself on finding that unique solution for each partnership and passing problem solving approaches to her students in an easy to understand way. Karen values the personal side of training that helps teams build strong personal connections for their perfect companion dogs.
Karen has coached several teams to their Championship level, in addition to her personal successes. Her experience began as a youth in 4H. She has kept connected to her roots by working with local 4H groups and encouraging members to train and compete with their dogs.
Karen’s personal achievements include her Border Collie, Cammie, who started her competition journey in Rally and at the age of 18 months was in the top 5 at AKC Nationals in Advanced. In 2018 Cammie became the pre-elite champ for large dogs in NADAC and competed in Silver Stakes in 2019.
Karen also competes her GSD, Quick, in Stakes and has multiple Agility Championships with her. Quick also has earned her Excellent Rally title and will be working on her Master title.
Levi, another of her Border Collies won his division at Regionals and earned a spot in the Championships in NADAC agility.