A crowd watched as Marla Smith carefully steered her Rottweiler Kuno to move away from the tempting tin of food sitting on the ground of an obstacle course at the Alberta Kennel Club Summer Classic dog show in Okotoks, Alta.
She commanded him through the series of tasks with words and gestures. When Kuno spun, Smith spun in her power wheelchair beside him, when he jumped over the wooden hurdle he cleared it with ease, and when he succeeded in a task she told him, “Good boy!”
In this event called obedience rally, Smith was the only person who was seated in a wheelchair while guiding a dog.
The competition allows dogs of various breeds to demonstrate their ability to do exercises based on their owner’s instructions. The humans are also on display as they move through the event.�
Over the last three years, Smith, who lives in Edmonton, has never seen another wheelchair-user in her tour of dog shows around the Prairies, but she felt she and her service dog Kuno were up to the task.
“The first season was kind of daunting because the judges never had to judge anybody in a wheelchair. The other competitors had never seen this,” she said.
But kennel clubs have only needed to make minor modifications for her to participate, she said.
“They might have to move some pylons a little further apart so that a dog the size of a small pony and a woman in a wheelchair can fit through them side by side,” she said. “But aside from that, we hold our own and we compete on the same level playing field as everybody else.”
A year and a half ago, Smith introduced Chesnyy to the dog show world, her two-year-old Rottweiler who she is training to replace Kuno when he retires from his service work.
Last weekend, in Lloydminster, Sask., both Kuno and Chesnyy took home a mouthful of new ribbons for their efforts.
Chesnyy is now the top-ranked Rottweiler in rally obedience in Canada and Kuno has earned a Masters title — the highest rank — in the dog sport.
Some of their success can be attributed to the skills these two dogs learned manoeuvring around her wheelchair, according to Smith. For example, Chesnyy has had to quickly learn to be agile while following instructions like dropping back from Smith’s side to follow behind her.
“The average dog owner doesn’t have to have a dog that can walk backwards beside them,” said Smith. “I do because a lot of times there’s no room for me to properly turn around so we may have to back down areas that we’ve walked into,” she said.
Eva O’Keefe, a judge for the Canadian Kennel Club (CKC) based in Alberta, said she could see how dedicated Smith is to her dogs, and that closeness is an important part of obedience training.
“I have had [Smith] and Chesnyy in classes quite often and their bond is even greater than your average pet owner because she relies on her dogs for some of her needs,” she said.
In her 35 years with dog shows, O’Keefe said she has seen several government certified service animals enter Canadian Kennel Club competitions with owners who have a range of disabilities. At an event in Vancouver this week, she said she had to communicate with a participant who was deaf with a monitor that connected directly to the woman’s hearing aid.
CKC has policies and procedures to make accommodations for participants based on their needs, but she said it has been about a decade since she has seen another wheelchair user on the course.
More than wooden hurdles
These dog shows would not have been possible for Smith five years ago.
Smith had the lower parts of both her legs amputated in 2019 after a neuroinflammatory illness led to a disastrous infection.
It took months before she had access to a power wheelchair, but she said Kuno motivated her to get outside, even when she felt she couldn’t.
“If I didn’t have a dog that I had to do it for, I probably would not have left my apartment for the first year and a half,” she said.
Eventually Smith settled in an apartment that was more accessible than her previous home in Sherwood Park, Alta., but it took her farther away from her dog’s vet.
In 2020, she relearned to drive with an adaptive van that uses hand controls to accelerate and break, to take her dog to health appointments and to help get places where her dogs could train and be social. A second-hand vehicle cost Smith $30,000 and after fundraising she said the cost wiped out her savings.
Smith said sometimes it’s easier to find the motivation to do things for your pets, than for yourself.
“I would pick up the phone and call my worst enemy and beg them for assistance if it was something that my dog needed. If it was me, I would just be self-conscious and go without,” she said.
But she has also discovered that travelling with her dogs has become about her own ambitions as well.
In 2021, a local dog trainer suggested she try dog shows. Smith said it made sense because she had done so much obedience work with her service animals, and using a wheelchair wouldn’t necessarily limit her in this arena.
Smith took the new challenge immediately.
“We don’t have a lot of things where we get to do the same thing beside people without the disability and so it became very inclusive for me,” she said. “I got to be in a community.”
Now, driving hundreds of kilometres to dog shows has become part of their routine. This fall she will take Kuno and Chesnyy to compete at shows in Battle River, Sask., Red Deer and Lethbridge, Alta.
Despite her passion, Smith said she still can come up against barriers at events.
Her wheels have spun out on dirt-packed ground in some events, and in other events her wheels got caught on the rubber matting placed. If the venue didn’t have an accessible washroom, she had to wait to pee for the entire day of events. She said she avoids outdoor dog shows because she can get stuck in grass.
Yet for Smith, the positives — for her and her animal companions — outweigh the negatives.
And when it comes to what she would be willing to do for her dogs to become best in show, even Smith has her limits.
She has no plans to enter Kuno and Chesnyy in any beauty competitions.
“I couldn’t get up at 3 o’clock in the morning to bathe and blow-dry my dog and spend three hours doing its hair,” she said.