Haley Berman and Mixed-Breed Tully Chase AKC National Agility Title in Temecula

Mixed-breed dogs have been pushing into the top tiers of competitive agility for years, and Haley Berman's All-American dog Tully made that case on one of the sport's biggest stages at the AKC National Agility Championship, held at Galway Downs in Temecula, California.

Tully competes under the AKC's All-American Dog program, which opened National Agility Championship eligibility to mixed-breed dogs and gave handlers like Berman a legitimate path to the title that had historically belonged to purebreds. That's not a small thing in agility circles. Getting a mixed-breed to the nationals means qualifying through the same regional structure as every Border Collie and Malinoix in the field, and Tully earned that spot.

Galway Downs is a well-known venue in Southern California horse country, and it hosts the kind of sprawling multi-ring setup that the AKC National Agility Championship demands. Running a dog there requires handling the space, the noise, and the energy of a national-level event, all of which test a dog's focus as much as their obstacle performance.

Berman's preparation with Tully going into the championship was the focus of an AKC feature published March 11, 2026, which highlighted the pair as a story worth watching. The piece positioned Tully not as an underdog curiosity but as a serious competitor, which tracks with where the All-American program has landed after years of integration into the AKC agility world.

For anyone running a mixed-breed in FAST or JWW qualifiers and wondering whether the nationals are a realistic target, Berman and Tully are exactly the kind of team that answers that question.