The Texas Six-Steppers are excited to host freestyler Kath Hardman from across the "Big Pond" for a two-day canine musical freestyle seminar. Kath and her dogs have been successfully competing in Heelwork to Music since 1999. Along with her dogs, Kath has been entertaining the crowds at Crufts every year since 2001. Heelwork To Music is a huge part of Kath’s life, she helps with the development of the sport in England and abroad, being a member of The Kennel Club, The KC Judges Working Party and The KC HTM Working Party along with being a founder member and Show Manager of a nationwide KC Registered HTM Club, Canine Freestyle GB which holds two weekend shows each year. In March 2008 at CRUFTS, Kath with her Crossbreed Spice won both THE FREESTYLE FINAL and went on to represent England in THE INTERNATIONAL FREESTYLE FINAL which they also won beating ten other countries including Germany, Denmark, Finland, Belgium, New Zealand & the Netherlands. In October 2010, at the Inaugural FCI World Championships held in Denmark at the World Show, Kath and her Border Collie Amber (Stillmoor Lady In Red) were proud to be selected as part of HTM Team GB, which were placed second in the championship and delighted that Amber and her were the highest scoring individuals gaining the Inaugural FCI Individual HTM World Champion title. Following this, in October 2011 and on September 2013, Kath was again selected with Spice and Amber to represent Great Britain at the Open European Championships in both Freestyle and Heelwork to Music. In 2013 Spice was the highest placed Freestyle dog in Team GB and Amber the highest placed HTM dog in Team GB.
Currently Kath has three “Dancing Dogs”, all successfully competing at the Advanced level in both HTM and Freestyle and all her dogs have been selected to represent Great Britain at the European Championships being held in Stuttgart, Germany in November 2014. Kath has also been honoured to judge HTM and Freestyle at Crufts, her first being in 2006 and her second appointment in 2012. She has just accepted an invitation to judge at the World Dog Show in Finland in August 2014.
She has travelled to Israel, Japan, Australia, Russia, USA and throughout Europe to promote the sport presenting training seminars for handlers and judges. Along with her talented dogs, Kath has performed at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre and made many live media appearances: BBC ‘Blue Peter’, ITV ‘This Morning’, ‘Brilliant Creatures’, ‘Animal Road Show’, “The Feelgood Factor”, Channel 4 “Its Me Or The Dog”, “The Richard and Judy Show”, and Sky One Pet Nation.
Kath says “The training of this sport creates such a strong bond between dog and handler which has been found to alleviate many dogs from unwanted behaviour. Dogs want to be with their owners more, want to learn more and they find that their owners can be good fun too! A happy dog makes a happy owner –it is an enjoyable sport to take part in, either competitively or just for fun.“