11-year-old Shih Tzu Tova returns to AKC obedience championship
At 11, Shih Tzu Tova was headed back to the AKC obedience championship with 79 titles, five starts since 2022 and a rare senior-athlete profile.
An 11-year-old Shih Tzu with 79 AKC titles was set to return to the National Obedience Championship at the Roberts Centre in Wilmington, Ohio, on July 16 and 17, and Tova stood out as one of the oldest dogs in the field. That is the kind of entry that breaks the usual obedience stereotype, because Shih Tzus are better known as lapdogs than as precision workers at championship level.
The American Kennel Club made the National Obedience Championship invitation-only, with dogs earning their way in through OTCH points or regional performance. Effective January 1, 2025, the winner of the event received the National Obedience Champion title and could use the initials NOC before the dog’s name, a change that gave the event even more weight at the top end of the sport.
Tova’s full registered name, Hallmark Jolei Hot On The Trail Tova OTCH2 PACH RACH2 VCD3 UDX7 OGM BN RM5 RAE5 FDC MXP7 MXPG MJP4 MJPB PAX XF MFPB TQXP CGC TKE, showed just how far her work had reached beyond obedience. AKC materials also showed Tova and handler Judy Harding won first place at the 2025 AKC Rally Champion Invitational, and American Shih Tzu Club results put the pair near the top again at the club’s 2025 specialty obedience and rally events. This was not a one-off novelty act. It was a dog with a long record of showing up and delivering.
Harding and Tova first entered the Obedience Championship in 2022, which made the 2026 event their fifth appearance together. That repeat trip mattered as much as the titles, because it pointed to a training routine that had held up over years, not just a lucky run. Harding has said she liked the challenge of working with a breed that is not expected to do everything, then proving that it can do almost anything when the training is careful and consistent.
The backstory fit the same pattern. Tova had originally been spoken for by a Broadway actress, but timing changed and the puppy ended up with Judy and Thomas Harding instead. Even the name carried that sense of character, with the dog first called Chanel No. 5 before becoming Tova. At 11, she was still forcing the sport to make room for a Shih Tzu that never looked built for obedience on paper and kept doing it anyway.
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