She's a furry, furiously fast, four-legged resident of Maple Ridge.

Four-year-old Zsimba also happens to be a world-class athlete and a member of the Canadian national dog agility team.

And, as a result of this, the Belgian shepherd and her handler/owner Bev Mattson are flying to De Warre, Belgium for the World Agility Open Championships, running May 18-20.

Their expectations for the world championships, Mattson said, are quite simple: "We're going to do the best we can. This is our first time going to Europe. We've 'trialed' in the States, but never gone across the water."

This competition is drawing the crème de la crème of canine athletes. Competitors will vie for four world titles: three individual and one team.

Team Canada is sending 15 handlers and 16 dogs, picked from across the country, along with manager Nina Durante and captain Mark Eckley, to Belgium.

The Maple Ridge duo is among the five Canadian dogs and three handlers entered in the 650 division.

The 525 and 650 divisions split the larger dogs into two jump heights so that they compete against dogs of a more similar height.

The 650 Division is for dogs with the ability to perform a 650-millimetre vertical jump.

Mattson jumped feet first into the world of dog agility roughly 14 years ago.

Knowing there was a dog class going on of some kind, Mattson said curiosity led her into a training facility in Nanaimo.

"We had just moved there, and the lady [leading the class] said, 'Who are you and where is your dog?' And that was it. I never looked back," Mattson related.

A lifelong dog owner, Mattson started training her American Eskimo, Atsak, in 1996 before switching to Bernese Mountain Dogs.

Zsimba has been a part of the Mattson family, which includes Bev's husband Stan, since she was puppy.

The dog comes from European stock, having been born in Hungary. Zsimba's breeder drove her to Frankfurt, Germany so she would have a direct flight to Vancouver where the Mattsons picked her up.

"She came out of her kennel ready for a party!" Mattson said.

Her lightness and athleticism makes Zsimba a natural fit for dog agility, although border collies are the most popular, Mattson noted.

While Mattson has won titles at the regional and national level with her Berneses, this is her first taste of the world championships.

She's well seasoned for the event, thanks to more than a decade of teaching and competing.

Zsimba, too, is wet behind her pointy ears when it comes to global competition, but on Canadian soil, she and Mattson have had quite a run, of late.

They took top spot in the 26-inch division at the BC/Yukon regionals in Abbotsford last year. The pair then went on to Barrie, Ont. in August 2011, and earned a fourth place finish in Canada in Zsimba's height division.

Not only do Bev and Zsimba compete in agility, a week after their win at the regional event, they went on to earn draft and tracking titles.

"We're a very versatile team," Mattson said.

In the sport of dog agility, the canine competitors are judged not only on their speed but how precisely they run through, over, and across the obstacles that include tunnels, teeters, dog walks, jumps, and weave poles.

Handlers are not allowed to have physical contact with their dogs, and Zsimba is cerebral enough to gallop ahead of Mattson as she runs through the course, which generally takes about 30 seconds to complete.

"It's kind of like a game of chase," explained Richard Ford, a fellow trainer who has been working with Mattson and Zsimba as they prepared for worlds. "They [the dogs] go ahead occasionally where there are areas to go ahead, and when there's places where decisions have to be made, that's where you do have to be ahead of them. [They're] trained that if there's jumps out in the periphery, to take the jumps and do them."

Zsimba is raring to go at all times, whether she's at HighRun Dog Sports, a training facility in Pitt Meadows, or in a competition.

"She's really eager to please and really eager to get going," Mattson said.

More often than not, this kind of frenetic energy can help a canine athlete, Ford said: "We teach our dogs to think at peak excitement.

"We push it and push it to where they fail, and we reward all the successes along the way."

Away from the arena, once her heart rate slows to a normal rate, Zsimba is like any other common household hound, Mattson remarked.

"She's a pleasure to live with," Mattson said. "I love the camaraderie that I have with my dogs. They are my best friends."

Ford shares a similar affection for mammals of the canine persuasion.

"When you train and work with dogs with a lot of love and a lot of desire they just understand you, they read you, they're a part of you."

tlandreville@mrtimes.com