João Paulino from Quarteira and his boxer dog Echo VDK won 3rd place in the WUBOX World Championship (World Union of Boxers), which took place on August 21st and 22nd, in Germany.
The championship that had three dozen participants of this breed from all over Europe. During the competition, the binomial managed to reach a total of 268 points out of 300 in the track, obedience and protection disciplines. Portugal also had the best track of the event with 98 points out of 100 in this discipline.
«It is a great responsibility to represent Portugal in the World Cups, but this is precisely what we have prepared for over the past six years. Echo had the best performance of his already long competitive career, he gave everything for everything, and this is a reason for great pride», says João Paulino.
“We are happy to think that we have participated in two World Cups and in both we achieved two podiums. The important thing is not the number of times we've been present at World Cups, but how many podiums we've managed to do in that number of participations. This is effectiveness», he reveals. “We traveled 9000 kilometers to participate in this championship”.
«Unfortunately, we missed an exercise that took away the possibility of being first, but third, ahead of competitors who have been training for much longer and with more and better conditions, coming from countries with a strong tradition and encouragement in canine sport when compared to our reality, it means that we had a really spectacular result considering all the difficulties with which we train. This proves that in Portugal, even with all the limitations we have, there is a very good level of canine training: good dogs, and good trainers», he explains.
Even so, «it is necessary that the various entities bet more on these good competitors and on the creation of canine training clubs with good conditions, so that we can train with the minimum ideal conditions to develop a high-level work», he adds.
“Echo”, João Paulino's partner boxer, is currently six years old and started training in the sport when he was two months old. Since then, training is daily.
“We are a truly united and inseparable team. We love each other's company and are always prepared to train, anywhere and anytime. It's what we like to do the most». In his spare time, Echo loves to swim in our dog pool, run alongside us while we ride our bikes in town or play on the beach. I see him as a high competition athlete, so we are very careful with the activities we develop with him, food, we resort to alternative medicines, and we bet a lot on daily physical and mental stimulation», he says.
«Unfortunately, it is not common to see boxer dogs in Portugal practicing this modality, although they are still considered a working breed. We are fighting to change this paradigm and we hope that it will inspire more people to start in this modality, whatever the breed of dog”, he stresses.
And what changes after another international recognition? For João Paulino the important thing is to continue to promote the sport in the Algarve.
“When we came third in a competition where some of the best in the world are, and we got a podium, this represents above all the quality of the work we have been doing over the last six years. It's a golden opportunity to prove that we have as much or more quality than other countries, other clubs, other working groups, all of which are very strong. This gives us encouragement to continue to develop the serious work that we have developed so far, without being dazzled», he says.
The duo's participation in WUBOX 2021 in Germany had as sponsors Câmara de Loulé, the company Setcereal, the dog food brand Happy Dog and the dog training center Iron Dog Algarve.
It is not the first time that the binomial represents Portugal in a world championship and manages to reach the podium. In 2018, the duo from Quarteira João Paulino and their Boxer dog Echo VDK, had climbed to the first place of the podium of the ATIBOX WM world championship, in IPO1, in Spain.
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