Amarillo teen and border collie Nim head to Germany for junior agility open

A two-year-old border collie that once barked at her water bowl is now bound for Mannheim, Germany, with Amarillo handler Elizabeth Kolath on the 2026 AKC Junior Agility Team USA. Nim and Kolath were named to the roster for the Junior Agility Open, a July 10-12 event that will put one local dog-and-handler pair into one of the sport’s sharpest international spotlights.

The trip is bigger than a feel-good sendoff. The American Kennel Club’s junior team format is tightly structured, with U12, U15 and U19 age groups running in Small, Medium, Intermediate and Large height divisions. Each team will take on one jumping course and one standard agility course, and the U.S. squad is capped at 32 dogs total, with eight dogs in each height division and one reserve dog for every four-dog team. AKC will pay the entry fee for each dog and provide the handler’s uniform, but the rest of the travel costs fall to the families.

Kolath and Nim did not arrive at this level overnight. Nim started agility training when she was just eight weeks old, and the dog’s early quirks gave way to the kind of focus that international courses demand. That transformation, from puppy chaos to responsive partner, is the work at the center of junior agility: hours of timing, body language, trust and repetition until the dog reads the handler as cleanly as a cue off the line.

The team will gather for a practice weekend May 30-31 at IncrediPAWS Dog Agility in Pataskala, Ohio, before heading to Germany. Junior handlers must hold an AKC Junior number to compete, another sign that this is a development pipeline, not a one-off showcase. The U.S. junior team’s depth has been building for years, with 26 handlers from across the country competing at the 2024 Junior Open Agility World Championship in Oudsbergen, Belgium.

For the border collie crowd, the open format matters too. Federation Cynologique Internationale rules say the Junior Open Agility World Championship is open to all dogs, with or without pedigree, a reminder that this sport rewards precision and partnership first. AKC’s broader agility calendar already stretches beyond Mannheim, with the European Open set for July 23-27 in France and the FCI Agility World Championship scheduled for Sept. 22-27 in Turku, Finland. For Amarillo, Kolath and Nim are carrying a local story onto a global course, where one clean run can say as much about youth talent in the United States as any podium finish.