2026 UpDog International Finals
By Brian Fidler
“What’s up dog?”, and why are frisbee competitors obsessed with a common joke among children? That is because Updog is one of the largest dog frisbee competition venues in the entire world. It is an organization where dogs and humans work as teams in multiple types of games to catch frisbees, earn points, and show off their wonderful relationships with each other!
Every year hundreds of teams from all over the world come to the southeast United States to compete in the Updog International Finals (UPDIF). UPDIF is not just a world competition, but to be seen as a celebration for all teams to show the great bond they have built with their dogs. There is no greater way to share that bond and connection with the world than the frisbee freestyle competition!
Appa handler Brian Fidler (used with Permission)
Freestyle is a high flying fast action competition, where competitors have free rein to create their own routines to music! These routines commonly include crazy tricks, loud music, fun themes, and complete imagination. The empty field is a blank canvas for teams to paint whatever picture they want!
My first time seeing freestyle I knew I had to be a part of the action! Being raised in a house where my father made a living playing music the majority of his life, and a family known for entertaining in our local music scene, it just felt like it was going to be a perfect fit. The only problem was I didn’t have a dog at this point.
That would all change in early 2024 when I would travel to Texas to get my first competition dog from ShawShack Dutch Shepherds. He is a Dutch Shepherd that we named Appa…. Yes, after the flying sky bison from Avatar the Last Air Bender, and it wouldn’t be until September 2025 that we would compete in our first freestyle competition in Orlando, Fl.
Until Appa was 16 months old we were not allowed to play freestyle due to the organization's age requirements. I would constantly sit and brainstorm songs for those first months with hopes of one day finding a song I would perform too on the UPDIF Field in 2026 (our first opportunity to freestyle on the big stage).
By the time our first opportunity to compete came around we had settled on a song. Gasoline by Connor Price and Nic D, a fun upbeat clean hip hop song about dancing. We spent about a week throwing something together just to get some experience ,and get the nerves out. We would go on to win the competition! It was a small field of competitors, but still a good chance to get some positive feedback!
We would then go to compete in an online freestyle competition in October, where Appa and I would do quite poorly. This is partially because I had no idea what I was doing, and I also just kind of threw something out there to get points to qualify for UPDIF. To qualify for the world competition you have to earn enough points in the specific games to be invited. For freestyle you needed 250 total points to qualify for 2026. Being so late in the year, and freestyle not being offered often, I came in with the mentality that points are points!
We would then set our sights on the Florida State Championship in November of 2025. This would be our last opportunity to gain the points we needed, but it would also be the first competition that we would have a month to prepare for. It would also be time for us to start thinking about ideas for UPDIF.
The competition was two days long with two rounds of freestyle. The competition would be split into two divisions based on skill level, intermediate and expert. Appa and I would enter the intermediate division because we were so new.
With Appa being a Dutch shepherd, he brings a lot of energy and enthusiasm to the field. I felt that we could always thrive in a fast paced showman type style. With him being young we don’t have a ton of big tricks yet, but I felt we could really find success in the entertainment category of the routine.
After the first day we were in 2nd place, and we would go on to become the Intermediate Florida State Champion after day 2. Most important of all we qualified for freestyle for UPDIF 2026!
I was excited to think this was a sign of things to come, but with all my excitement I still had to think of what was best for Appa’s health. With all of our early success he was not even 2 years old yet, and the last thing I wanted to happen was for him to sustain an injury because I pushed him too far too quickly. Frisbee is a very high impact sport after all, and it is a lot of fun, but with that fun can come serious risks if you push your dog beyond their limits.
For the next two months Appa and I took quite a bit of time off. This was partially due to showing conformation in AKC, and also because we were going to get his hips OFA tested once he turned 2 years old. A common practice to just prove his hips are healthy, and that he was fully developed.
During those 2 months off I took the Updog freestyle judging course to learn how to be a freestyle judge. My mind was blown on how I was focusing on all the wrong things, and I didn’t actually know what made a routine “good”. This forced me to start focusing on communication on the field, and working on aspects that would help us flow better while we waited to get results back on his hips.
Appa would come back with an excellent hip Rating, and we essentially had the green light to get back to work on freestyle! With only 2 months until UPDIF I knew we didn’t have a lot of time to work on massive tricks. We were going to again heavily rely on theming and energy from our routine, and add a couple new things to the state routine. We would have time to teach our first big freestyle trick which was a dog flip! Appa picked it up very quickly, and surprised me with his body awareness in the air.
From February through March we would practice basically 3 times a week, and it was something I would highly look forward to! Spending time with my dog every other day, and getting out on the field is a great escape from everyday life. There were days when we would have 20-30 mph winds, which made it practically unplayable. We did know that weather could be unpredictable ,so we would play through it anyway. There were days where it felt pointless, and days where it felt like progress. No matter what we continued to show up to the quiet field in Edgewater, FL.
Everything was starting to come together, until about two weeks out. I would pull my hamstring leaving me with a noticeable limp and bruise on the back side of my leg. Appa and I really lean on our ability to move around the field, and I was left not knowing how I would be able to move for the most important event of the year. I would try to bend over to pick up discs while moving, and almost fall over. I was slow to get to spots on the field that I easily made it to before the injury. Everything seemed to be in limbo on our ability, but Appa was always there to pick up the slack.
As I worked on rehabbing my hamstring to get back to normal, it seemed as though Appa would make my life easier. The flips were getting crisper, the body was more controlled through the air as he jumped, and he was playing the best frisbee of his life. Just in time for us to head to North Carolina in early April!
UPDIF is a thing that frisbee competitors wait all year for. It’s 6 days of fun competition in a community that you can really tell loves their dogs more than anything. As it is commonly said, UPDIF is more of a celebration of our dogs, than a competition! You spend 6 days hanging out with friends, exploring vendors, and just having a good old fashioned fun time.
Friday would be the first day for freestyle, and Thursday Night I would not get a lot of sleep. I was in the running order for Friday, and I was definitely nervous. I knew I wasn’t going to win the whole thing, but no one wants to fall on their face in front of everyone! Also, no one at this level knows who we are, so I felt we had a chance to surprise everyone and make a good first impression. I knew that we could at least entertain, and put on a great show for everyone to enjoy. That was the plan from the beginning before I ever started competing.
We were scheduled to perform at about two o’clock. As lunch came around the nerves really started to mount. Every name that was called before us brought more anxiety…. I’ve never competed on a stage like this before, so who knows how it’s going to go. It also doesn’t help that at UPDIF there are about 6-8 competition fields, but every tent is set up around the freestyle field. That’s what everyone wants to watch, and it gives the feeling you are inside a little tent stadium when you are standing out there. One more person before we go on, and I can’t speak and I can’t sit down. Appa is just locked in, and there is only one thing on his mind…. Frisbee.
As we walked on to the field, it may just be the fact that the music is off, but it feels quiet. I put Appa into a sit, and he gave me the best stable sit I had seen from him. I knew our entire routine