Leslie Baumann
May 04 2008
Leslie Baumann has been showing and training dogs her entire adult life and began participating in agility about twelve years ago. Her ten year old Lhasa Apso, Winston, is the first champion in that breed’s history to receive Open, Excellent and Master AKC agility titles. In 2007 Winston ranked among the top five AKC agility Lhasas. As a result, the team competed at the AKC Agility Invitational in Long Beach, CA last December.
While Winston focuses on rally obedience this year, Leslie is competing in agility with her Border Collie, Maven, NA NAJ in AKC and USDAA venues. In addition, Paris, a two year old Lhasa Apso, will start attending trials with Leslie and Maven this summer.
An agility instructor for the past five years, Leslie regularly attends seminars and camps to learn from nationally respected instructors, including numerous AKC World Team members, past and present. Her training philosophy is geared towards building communication and teamwork between handler and dog via incremental learning and positive reinforcement. She believes that the real joy in agility is not just the competition, but also the ongoing development of a close working relationship between handler and dog.
