World Photo by Lou Sennick According to his owner Liz Dodge, Mick is a one-in-a-million dog when it comes to agility courses. Dodge has a small course set up in her Coos Bay yard where she and Mick train on running obstacles.

COOS BAY — Liz Dodge has a pack of skilled performers living in her house. No, her four competitive canines don’t come from prestigious blood lines of champion agility competitors. They were dogs nobody wanted until Dodge found all four of them at shelters or in dog rescue programs.

It all started with 7-year-old Mick, an Australian shepherd mix.

Dodge found Mick in Prineville. She was searching for a dog to perform in agility contests. In Mick, she found a dog who’s just as fast as he looks. He’ll do just about any trick for a ball. He amazes kids when they play with him. They try to get the ball by him. It doesn’t happen very often.

“Don’t play soccer with him,” Dodge said. “He’ll win every time.”

Mick’s skill at agility is world class, but he also is the reason Dodge wanted to adopt more dogs. She wanted to return the favor to the person who fostered Mick and gave him a second chance.

“I was lucky to get him first,” Dodge said.

Dodge soon found Jig, Mick’s 6-year-old sister at a rescue south of Bandon.

Next came Jammer, a 5-year-old Australian shepherd. Jammer wasn’t nearly as lovable then as he is now. He was downright grumpy when Dodge first met him four years ago.

She added him to the pack after a Coos County Animal Shelter worker called to say they had a dog for her. It was a Monday, a day the shelter is closed and not processing adoptions. A curious Dodge asked about that and whether they wanted her to come that day. The response was: “Oh we’ll wait.”

Jammer greeted her with a growl from the shelter pen, but she gave him a chance and his sweet side eventually shined.

Dodge’s three older dogs compete in agility trials, but Dodge’s fourth addition, 17-month-old border collie Tru — still too young to compete — is in training. Tru, now a well-groomed and handsome dog, was an unkempt mess when a Corvallis rescue group picked him up.

Dodge’s dogs have gained a little fame this winter.

Tru and Jammer are featured on the cover of the November-December issue of the dog culture magazine Bark. It’s one of six covers the magazine issued this year featuring readers’ dogs.  Bark celebrated its 10th anniversary by asking readers to submit photos of their beloved canines along with a 150-word essay explaining why they should be cover dogs. They were picked from more than 6,000 entries.

“I was just blown away,” Dodge said. “I guess I thought they would never be chosen.”

Dodge found out in early October  and soon was on the road with her pack to Portland for a photo shoot with photographer Amanda Jones. It took more than four hours, but Dodge’s camera-ready crew took it all in stride. They were able to play ball for the camera, and Dodge said Jones was able to convince the dogs to ham it up. That is except for youngster Tru, who displayed behavior equivalent to the canine version of “Are we done yet?”

“They loved it, but Tru got very bored,” Dodge said.

Jones was able to work magic on Dodge’s baby boy and get him to sit up and strike a pose. She ended up taking more than 500 photos of the foursome.

Mick appeared on an inside page in the magazine in an advertisement. The photo of him balancing a tennis ball on his nose is Dodge’s favorite.

It seems fitting, given that it was Dodge’s love of Mick that inspired her take in other dogs deemed unadoptable and turn them into not only well-loved pets, but obedient and agile performers.

“The thought that this dog could’ve been euthanized because no one wanted him breaks my heart,” she said.