About Sarah

Sarah Fernandezlopez

I grew up in a small Texas town where I nurtured my love of animals. At Rice University, I earned a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science and actually kept a red tailed boa my senior year. I met Esteban at Rice and shortly after we got married, we got a beautiful rottweiler puppy. One day, I was at obedience class with the rottweiler when I saw some people in another corner of the building doing agility and it wasn’t long before I put us in a beginner class. We quickly added a golden retriever and a miniature Australian shepherd to the family–specifically for agility. The rest is history.

I apply my computer science background to dog agility whenever possible. At BDA, we always look for ways to support and advance the sport of dog agility. For example, we created the PowerScore rankings which identifies the top dogs in AKC by yards per second rather than cumulative qualifications or title.

As a competitor, I have trained and trialed many dogs to their agility championship title in both USDAA and AKC. I have competed at USDAA Cynosport, the AKC National Agility Championship, and the AKC Invitational. Esteban and I share dogs so I have done a fair amount of the training and trialing for our dogs, especially when his medical career left little time for the sport.

My 7-year-old border collie Venture is a highly skilled agility dog that I retired from competition early on because of his extreme anxiety in moving vehicles and at trials. His handling and tugging skills have made him a wonderful demonstration dog for our training videos. His problems made me more attuned to the non-agility issues that people often face with their agility dogs.

As a seminar presenter and instructor at Bad Dog Agility, I want to thank you for making us part of your agility journey, and I hope to work with you and your dog in the near future.

>