Scott Sexton
Apr 13, 2026
The 10-plus hours of driving halfway down the East Coast, food, lodging and $4 a
gallon gas were a tiny price for Mikayla Holmes to pay to spend the better part of a
week with Atlas, her 2-year-old Chocolate Lab, taking part in the UpDog Challenge
International Finals disc competition.
The smile on her face said as much.
“What makes it worthwhile?” Holmes said, repeating the question. “This.”
This would be one very happy, very good boy, obviously pleased with his just-
completed run through an agility event catching Frisbees on Sunday afternoon in
Tanglewood Park. “Seeing him have his best day ever is definitely worth it,” she said.
Good, clean fun
Without doubt, Tanglewood, the crown jewel of Forsyth County’s parks system, is an
awesome spot.
Miles of multiuse trails, a championship golf course with a brand new $15 million
clubhouse, an aquatic center and a very underrated RV campground set on some
1,100 acres once used as a country retreat for the Reynolds family make it so.
But the mighty Yadkin River isn’t the Atlantic Ocean, and Tanglewood, despite an
impressive array of amenities, isn’t normally considered an international tourist
destination.
That changed when UpDog, a self-described quirky and inclusive organization
dedicated to dog and disc competition, brought its week-long International Finals to
the park.
Played on a field longtime locals will remember for a raucous, boozy steeplechase,
UpDog finals attracted more than 1,000 dogs and 400 handler/owners from the U.S.,
Canada and even Australia. The visitors filled hotels, campgrounds, rental houses and
restaurants, which, as Visit Winston-Salem estimated for local media, brought in
some $200,000 from April 8-12.
That’s nothing to sniff at, no matter who’s doing the math.
The different events, at least to a newcomer who wandered into the field after hearing
the PA system carry through the park, are difficult to explain in great detail as the
names on an entry sheet — Frizgility, Far Out, Time Warp and Spaced Out among
them — make plain.
“UpDog is dedicated to expanding the awareness and participation of people and
dogs in athletic endeavors,” the organization’s website explains. “We want more
people and more dogs having fun, playing together.”
The long and short of it is that all the events involve a dog and its human competing
in timed heats.
Some contests involve navigating obstacles and catching discs. Others involve
catching discs over different distances in the shortest time.
“There are a variety of games that are basically derived from playing Frisbee with
your dog in the park,” explained Sam Taylor as he waited with his Belgian shepherd,
also named Atlas.
Any dog of any size or breed can compete. People, too, for that matter.
“(Dogs) are categorized by how tall they are,” Taylor said. “It’s a little more fair that
way. You can’t have a Belgian Malinois competing against a 6-inch toy (breed).”
A team effort
At its heart, as the name International Finals implies, UpDog is a competition with
first-place, second-place, and third-place awards across various categories and
events. Getting there involves qualification by earning points at regional events.
It’s work, too, as dogs don’t train themselves to catch Frisbees, return them and
willingly drop them in timed heats.
“Oh, the humans can definitely mess it up big time,” Taylor said.
He and his wife, Sandra, brought their four dogs down Interstate 95 from Connecticut
just for this.
The whole idea is healthy, high-quality outdoor fun with your best buddy and time
spent with like-minded humans.
Sam Taylor and Atlas get ready for competition on Sunday in the UpDog challenge
Scott Sexton
“It’s a great community,” Sandra Taylor said. “We like catching up with our friends.
You see a lot of the same faces and meet nice people.”
The dogs love it, too.
As a group, the dogs might not be as competitive as thoroughbreds in a high-stakes
horse race, but they clearly know something’s up and want to please their handlers.
“They’re all different,” Sam Taylor said. “But they all want to play with you.”
Viewed through that prism, for dog people, spending a few glorious spring days in
Tanglewood Park sounds like everything you’d want in a vacation.
Even without a sandy beach.
Scott Sexton has been a bemused observer of daily life — and occasional thorn in the side of elected officials
— in Winston-Salem since 2005. ssexton@wsjournal.com
336-727-7481 @scottsextonwsj
By Scott Sexton
