Our Locations
Main Building
8438 Old Richfood Rd.
Mechanicsville, VA 23116
18,000 square feet of dog-approved fun! Safe, top of the line equipment and footing ensure that you and your best friend stay happy, comfortable, and safe. We have a 65’x40’ matted ring available for obedience, rally, and foundation agility classes and rentals! This matted area serves as crating for our competitions. An additional turf 10’x15’ practice jump area is available at competitions for warmup.
Take a 3D tour of our Main Building
Annex Building
8175 Mechanicsville Turnpike
Mechanicsville, VA 23111
10,000 square feet climate controlled training facility. Full ring of competition agility equipment with the same turf as our main location! We also have a canine fitness gym here, fully equipped with a dog treadmill, cavalettis, a treadmill, and other training equipment.
This building is used for training purposes only. No competitions will be held here, aside from some ACT events.
Our Staff
Merritt Speagle - Manager & Agility Instructor
Merritt has been training dogs since she was 9 years old. she has multiple national placements, most recently earning a bronze medal at the agility US open and 2nd and 4th place at Cynosport World Games Grand Prix of Dog Agility with her dogs Damuraz and Phenomenon, and 4th in Biathlon with Phenomenon. Her 2 year old dog, Surefire, earned a Biathlon silver medal at Cynosport World Games in 2023, and was a US Open Speedstakes finalist at age 1. All of her current dogs have collected various regional podiums. Her current dogs are:
MACH ADCH PDCH IAC2 IWAC2 IACS IWACS CSS Sagehill Force Of Nature “Phenomenon” MXS MJB XF T2B PAX TM-GOLD PTM-GOLD SACH-SILVER JCH-SILVER GCH SCH-BRONZE PSCH PJCH PKCH
ADCH IAC IWAC CSS Sagehill Tough To Touch! “Damuraz” MXB MXJ OF TM-PLATINUM SACH-SILVER JCH-BRONZE SCH-BRONZE RCH
Sagehill A Touch Too Cheeky “CHICA” AD AX AXJ IND SSN
Rendezvous With Destiny “SUREFIRE” ISD SSN AX AXJ
Courtney Iannello - Rally & Obedience Instructor
Courtney was introduced to the world of dog training in 2008 when she adopted her first dog, Troy. Troy went on to earn a Rally Master Championship, Herding Instinct Test, and Novice agility titles. He was ranked nationally in WCRL Rally for several years, and is on the WCRL Lifetime Achievement List. Courtney is currently competing in Obedience, Rally, and Agility with her dogs, Jenga and Win. She has achieved an AKC Utility Dog title with Jenga, and most recently earned a CDX with up-and-comer, Win. Courtney has trained with top competitors in multiple sports and is able to bring a wide range of methods to her classes. She places an emphasis on foundation training to promote a happy working dog and enjoys helping her students to find fun in training.
Katie Briggs - Agility Instructor
Katie Briggs first fell in love with dog training while taking the family greyhounds through pet obedience classes when she was in elementary school. Shortly thereafter, she got Annie, a Miniature Schnauzer who ignited the agility addiction - they went on to earn 3 MAChs together. That was twenty years ago and while the sport has evolved, her love of the game has stayed constant. She now shares her life with a Border Collie and four Pyrenean Shepherds on a farm outside Richmond.
Katie has competed at the NAC, Cynosport, the US Open, EO tryouts and at FCI shows in Europe. Her dogs are regional champions and national finalists but most importantly they’re just fun to hang out with. Her methodology is simple - work with the dog to find reinforcement that they love and use it to inject joy into every single training session.
Maddie Speagle - Agility Instructor
Sarah Crane - Agility Instructor
Sarah started dog training after getting her first dog, Pembroke welsh corgi, “Hector” MX MXJ APD RL2 in 2011. since then, she has fallen in love with dog training and now teaches various classes at Level Up. Hector has earned his Master agility titles and has dabbled in Rally Obedience as well. He is also a certified therapy dog. Sarah’s current agility dogs, border collies Ajax and up and comer Tera, hold various titles and compete in AKC, UKI and USDAA. She is a founding member of Eastern Herding Dog Rescue and serves as Vice President on the board. Sarah teaches biology and chemistry at a local high school, and enjoys learning about science.
Dr. Elizabeth Kost, DVM - Tricks & Agility Instructor
Elizabeth Kost, DVM is an emergency veterinarian by night. She has been actively training dogs for the last 9 years. She has taught Agility, Tricks, Obedience and Manners classes during that time. She is actively competing in Agility, Rally, Obedience, Earth Dog, and Barn Hunt. During her time in veterinary school, she was President of the Behavior Club, giving lectures on body language, play and many behavioral problems in dogs and cats. She also worked closely with Ross University’s Kennel Dog Program as their first Behavior Coordinator, running their training program and doing behavior assessments of the University's dogs. Her current dogs are:
Gaius Baltar “Gaius AXP MJP NA OAJ CD JE CGC TKP RL3
“Kaylee” NA NAJ CGCA TKA
Carol Boggess - Agility Instructor & Office Administrator
Carol has been training dogs for over 20 years. She has been involved in training Canine Companions for Independence puppies, manners classes, Rally, Obedience, and Agility. Carol currently continues to teach agility, which is her passion. She has multiple National Agility placements in AKC, USDAA, and UKI. In 2019 Carol earned 4th place at the AKC National Agility Championship and earned Gold in Winner Takes All Sweepstakes, Bronze in Biathalon, and Silver in the National Championship Final at the UKI US Open. Carol trains using positive reinforcement, and attends private lessons and seminars from some of the top agility instructors in the world.
HER CURRENT DOGS ARE:
PACH IAC Dixie's “SIZZLE” MX MXB MXJ MXP3 MXPB MJP3 MJPB PAX NF BCAT
ITS High Flying Marvel “IRON MAN” MX, MXJ, OF
NEVER FORGOTTEN:
MACH PACH Heavensent Fast And Furious “SKILLS” CD RA MXB MJB MXPB MJP3 MJPB PAX (Rainbow bridge & the boy that started it all for me.)
MACH3 Spinillons Seymour “EZ” MXC MJS2 NF (Handled & Loved by Carol. Retired in FL.)
Amy Shankle, CPDT-KA - Manners Instructor
Amy has 10+ years of experience training her own dogs, and has been teaching classes for nearly 5 years. Working through her own dogs’ struggles with reactivity piqued an interest in behavior, while competing with her dogs in Rally, Obedience, and Agility brought out a love for dog sports and teaching. Her favorite part of teaching is seeing the progress that her students make.
Ashley Yanez (Ash) - Agility and Canine Conditioning Instructor
Ashley has worked with dogs professionally since 2005. She is a Handling 360 and Agility Academy Alumni, an Absolute Dog Pro Dog Trainer(PDT), and has competed the Northeast K9 Canine Conditioning Academy’s Conditioning 101 Course and The Elite Canine Athlete Program. Ashley strongly believes in building solid foundations and good communication in dog training wether the goal is to compete in a sport or to simply have a nice family pet. In her spare time she enjoys outdoor activities such as hiking, surfing, tennis and soccer. Her dogs are:
Estelle IAC, IWAC,A X, AXJ, CGC who is an overall biathlon gold medalist and overall Masters series gold medalist at the US Open 2023 and won bronze in games at the North American UKI Invitational,
Turkish IAC, IWAC, AX, AXJ who won Master Series overall Silver at the 2024 UKI Classic
Southpaw OA, OAJ who won bronze in the Final at the 2024 UKI Classic
Lachelle Henderson - Manners & Agility Instructor
Lachelle grew up riding and competing horses. She made the transition to the world of dog sports after discovering that her young cattle dog needed a job. She enjoyed the community so much that she began teaching manners classes in 2018. Around the same time she also began training and competing in agility. Since then, she’s added a young border collie to the pack, who has just started her agility career. In addition to agility, Lachelle and her dogs have also shown interest in trick training, dock diving, stunt dog, and fast cat.
James George - Agility Instructor
James George is a recently retired RN with a 10 year history of agility sports, as well as dabbling in trick training, Fast Cat and Dock Diving.
His agility career started while he was fostering Springer Spaniels. Lucy, a 9 month old Springer came with a history of anxiety, and home destruction. Agility was started as an outlet and like so many he promptly caught the agility bug. Lucy went on to be the #2 Springer in the country in her height class for a period of time.
Currently James is competing with a Border Collie and 2 sport mixes and trials frequently locally as well as nationally occasionally. He has competed at AKC Nationals twice and Westminster twice.
He has put 6 MACH's (Masters Agility Championships) on his dogs to date.
James's training philosophy is reward based training with an emphasis on building motivation and drive. The goal is for the sport to be fun and rewarding for both the dog and the handler.