Freestyle

I realized that I've never blogged about one of my new(ish)-found loves; freestyle.

Canine freestyle is quite a new sport; it was born about 20 years ago. There are 2 main types of freestyle: musical freestyle and heelwork to music (HWTM). Basically, musical freestyle is all about tricks, while HWTM is (you guessed it) all about heeling. Both types of freestyle are performed in time to music.

This is one of the most well-known musical freestyle routines, by Carolyn Scott and her late golden, Rookie:


And this is an example of heelwork to music:


I discovered freestyle soon after I discovered agility, but I just started to get more serious about it this year. Musical freestyle is the one I'm into. Mika, being the flashier trick dog, is my main freestyle dog for now, but I might try HWTM with Wall-e one day; he's great at heeling, whereas Mika's version of heeling is bouncing/galloping along beside me!

I choreographed our very first routine a couple months ago. It's perfect for Mika because it's fast and involves a lot of motion. The song is "Get Up And Dance" by Faber Drive.

I'll admit it...I'm terrible at dancing. The good thing about freestyle, though, it that the attention is mostly on the dog and if the dog is flashy, she'll make up for the human's lack of dancing skills!

Sadly, there are no freestyle competitions in my area that I know of. I guess that's kind of a good thing though, since the judges generally don't appreciate barking in the routines :)