About Laura Hartwick

Laura Hartwick, is a true dog and pony girl. She has been a fixture in the hunter/jumper community in Santa Cruz since 1983, riding and teaching riders for nearly 40 years. Twenty-plus-ish years ago, she took up the sport of dog agility as a hobby, which quickly went completely awry, and she’s now been helping people to train their dogs for agility for almost 15 years, as well as traveling the country to compete with her own dogs. Laura is particularly grateful to spend every hour of her days with horses and dogs in such a beautiful part of the country, helping to teach others further their relationships with these animals.

Dogs
Laura is a dedicated competitor with her own dogs, recently winning medals against competitors from around the country at the 2022 UKI West Coast Open, West Coast Cup, and USDAA Western Regional with her border collies Banksy and Bader. 2023 accomplishments had 2yr old Bader winning top podium spots at the West Coast Open, West Coast Cup, Western Regional, Red Poppy ISC Cup, Red Solo ISC Cup and the BATF ISC Cup and Banksy moving into semi-retirement. She is also a popular agility instructor, teaching locally and at seminars. Laura’s well known for her creative and fun teaching style, and she always strives to break training and handling into small enough bits that everyone excels. Her little dogs, Gustavo, Otterpop and Ruby, were consistently placed in the USDAA Top Ten, and well known as part of the legendary West Coast Small Dog Mafia. Laura was a long time columnist for Clean Run Magazine, and well known for the popular teamsmalldog blog. Her agility journey has taken her to high level events throughout the years with all kinds of breeds-border collies, weirdo mystery rescue dogs, cattle dogs, chihuahuas, and terriers. In Laura’s twenty-some-plus years of training and competing, even if she’s not yet totally conquered dog agility, she’s gotten great at shaking it off when it conquers her and then getting to work training it. Watch her dogs in action on her youtube channel, or find out more on Laura at www.laurahartwick.com.

Ponies
Laura was a fixture in the Santa Cruz hunter/jumper world for well over thirty years, doing everything from starting young horses and riders to working with older ones. Laura speciality has always been starting children and adults alike with the proper foundations of hunt seat equitation that will stay with them for a lifetime. Her greatest goal was to teach her students not just how to ride well and have a great time doing so, but to also develop a relationship with their horses. Laura is currently the owner and trainer at the Lost Empire Ranch in Bonny Doon, a private facility which is not open to the public.