A different breed of show dog

It may have been the finals in a national canine competition, but Viva didn't let that stop her from introducing herself to a judge and the camera crew taping the event for cable TV's Animal Planet network.

"She's Little Miss Social Butterfly," said Viva's owner, Kathryn Ananda-Owens of Northfield, Minn.

In the end, Viva took seventh place in her jump-height division during the American Kennel Club's (AKC) Agility Invitational this month in Long Beach, Calif. And she had the highest cumulative score for all dogs in her breed group.

It was a remarkable achievement for the reddish Icelandic sheepdog and Ananda-Owens, 40, a classical pianist and music professor at St. Olaf College in Northfield, who had never even owned a dog before she began surfing the Internet for a medium-size spitz four years ago. She bought Viva from New Hampshire breeder Lori Julius.

"I got tenure," Ananda-Owens said, "and [Viva] was part of my sabbatical. ... I wanted a good jogging buddy and someone to curl up with at the end of the day."

But Viva is not just any dog.

She belongs to a 2,000-year-old breed that the Vikings brought by ship to Iceland around the year 900.

Careful efforts to breed the remaining stock helped them bounce back, and today there are 600 registered in the United States.

Viva has been on something of a roller coaster herself this year. She was rated the top Icelandic sheepdog by the AKC, which opened agility competitions to the breed last year.

But Viva was idled for much of the summer after straining a ligament while chasing a cat and had to undergo rehab at a special program for performance animals at the University of Minnesota. She did well on hill climbing but didn't much like the underwater treadmill, Ananda-Owens said.

Agility, a fast-growing canine sport, uses a set of 18 to 22 obstacles -- tunnels, weave poles, jumps and seesaws -- that dogs must run over, through or around.

Viva was one of only two Icelandic sheepdogs to compete at this month's tournament in Long Beach, and the Icelandic Sheepdog Association of America raised money to help cover expenses for both dogs.

But when she slipped and fell in a chute, she kept going.

"She's very sweet-natured, very easygoing, but get her on the agility course and she's a fireball," Ananda-Owens said. "I think that was one of the things I saw when she fell in the chute. She got right up."

Donna McDermott, president of the national sheepdog association, said that Ananda-Owens and Viva have done remarkable work.

"Kathryn is not a professional and this is a hobby for her, and she does it for the love of the dog," McDermott said.

"The neat thing about Kathryn is that she just loves to play with Viva. And then, she's made it this far."