Meet CaniCross Competitor, Samantha West

Personal Bio

Hi, my name is Sam and my 2 year old dog is called Archie, neither of us had any experience of the competitive dog sporting world until only recently, myself not even really running before and until a year and a half ago I had never even owned a dog.

Archie crashed into my world like a wrecking ball, a year old rescue from Italy, with a severely abused background of starvation and abuse. I had absolutely no experience with dogs at all and he was highly reactive. The learning curve was extremely steep, there were many tears and the only saving grace we both had was running, mostly me chasing him as he was escaping!

I joined the local canicross group and it was the best thing to happen in our lives. It's such a fabulous community to get involved with and through miles of beautiful woodland and hills we made many new friends, we bonded and became a fabulous running pair. Now we are getting faster and faster, we have completed a few organised races and have done really well.
Archie is more competitive than myself but I don't normally have a choice behind!

I am really excited to have been chosen to demonstrate this fabulous sport, we may come last on the day but as a 50 year old mum of two who has never had a dog or competed in races with her feral rescue underdog, I am very proud of how far we have come.

It is a total privilege to be part of something special and to celebrate the sporting dog world!