Bios

Dr. Joe Canova

Joe is the founder of Mountain Freaks Dog Agility Club. He has been involved in the sport of dog agility since 1996. He has had multiple dogs in the national finals of both AKC and USDAA Championships. He and his border collie, Argos recently won the 20” hybrid round at the 2007 AKC National Championships in Ohio. He has qualified and competed at the AKC World Team Tryouts for the past three years. Joe and his wife Ali have developed a training system has proven successful with many different dogs. Joe teaches seminars around the country with his wife Ali as well as authoring a new DVD, World Class Weaves with Joe Canova, and a new foundation agility book to be released in late 2007. Joe is also a professional sports photographer, having traveled with the USA World Team as official photographer. He has covered the World Championships in Portugal, Germany and Italy. His photos have appeared in the AKC Gazette, Clean Run and several books. Joe is also a chiropractic physician and the CEO of Hoboken Integrated Healthcare, a multidisciplinary healthcare facility.

Ali Roukas Canova

Ali is the training director of Mountain Freaks Dog Agility Club. Ali is a full time agility instructor and teaches throughout the US. She has been competing in dog sports since 1993 with a variety of breeds, including English Springer Spaniels, Papillion, Golden Retriever, and Border Collies. Ali’s Border Collies hold multiple championship titles, have been in the USDAA Nationally Ranked Top Ten charts, and have competed in the National Finals of USDAA and AKC agility competitions for the last 5 years. Ali has also competed successfully in herding trials, dog obedience trials, and conformation events. Ali has been a top competitor on the national level and her dogs and those trained on her running contact system are widely recognized as having some the fastest running contacts in the US. She has taught the system to many different dogs of different sizes, shapes and breeds with great success. Along with Dog Sports Productions Ali recently released the definitive DVD on running contacts available, Running Contacts with Ali Roukas Canova which is available directly through Mountain Freaks, Cleanrun.com, or Amazon.com. Joe and Ali are also currently at work on a foundation agility training book to be published by Lyons Press scheduled to be released in late 2007.