CLUB HISTORY

In 1999, Pat Moore and Carolyn Money got the same idea, after Pat saw Mary Ray on a TV coverage of the Crufts Dog Show from Great Britain and Carolyn saw a live demo at the Pupperoni West Coast Regional Obedience Trials in Tacoma, Freestyle with your Dog.  

Another member, Elaine Diedrich, in the meantime, went to an ADPT  Conference in San Diego and saw a demonstration put on by Patie Ventre and Ray Underwood for WCFO.  Elaine came back all excited and a little group got together to watch a freestyle video Carolyn had bought at the show where she saw the demonstration. Arrangements were made to go to Canada and have a lesson with Ray by Carolyn, Elaine and Jane Burkey. Ray talked us into entering the very first competition that Paws 2 Dance was having that year in July of 2000.  

After we came back from there, Kathy Lang invited Ray and Shannon to come down and hold a work shop for her Training Center and people started to get excited about the sport. In the meantime the ones already mentioned asked to put on a demo for our Sequim Kennel Club and they were so excited by us that they asked us to do a demo at their Big All Breed Show in the summer.  A lady from the Seattle Kennel Club saw us there and asked us to perform at their Show the next March and from there our demos mushroomed to the point where we did 14 in one year.  

In October of 2000, Paws 2 Dance put on their second competition at the Lower Mainland Dog Show known as Tradex which we entered. On the way home from that show Pat exclaimed, “I don't see why we can't put on a competition in Washington”. That was  the beginning! July 15, 2001 we put on our first Paws 2 Dance competition at Pawsabilites in Tukwila. We became the Western Washington Chapter  of the Canadian Freestyle Club, Paws 2 Dance. The first couple of shows Pat and Carolyn did all the organizing and asked family and friends to help out on the day of the event.  Then Corinne Lawson came on board, which helped tremendously.  She brought with her a very talented trio of manpower, her two sons and husband, who have been our videographers for around 5 years along with wearing many hats.       

In 2005 we decided to branch out further and held our first World Canine Freestyle Organization (WCFO) event.  It turned out to be a great success so we decided we would put on one Paws 2 Dance and one WCFO competition a year.  In 2007 WCFO asked us to host the North American National.  

In 2005 we hosted our first workshop alone, with Carolyn Scott, which was so great and we all got to meet Rookie.  In 2006 we invited Diane Kowalski for a seminar in Arlington and Michele Pouliot for a one day seminar in Sequim. We even squeezed in another two seminars with Brigitte Sclabas and her delightful poodles that year. In 2007 Sharon Colvin had a tricks workshop for us in Sequim and Ray Underwood and Michele Pouliot each presented us with a day of Freestyle in March at Country Classic Kennels.  In October of 2008 we were treated by another spectacular seminar for two days with Richard Curtis from the UK, in Arlington and earlier in the year, in May, we had a day workshop with Corinne Lawson in Sequim. In 2009 once more we had Ray Underwood down to give us a choreography workshop. In 2010 we had a workshop with Corinne Lawson in Poulsbo and are looking forward to our two day seminar coming up in November of 2011 with Julie Flannery. 

2011 will be a special year as it marks the 10th Anniversary of the dream that started with Pat Moore on a car ride back from Canada.