YOU'VE seen it on TV - dogs speeding over see-saws, powering through tunnels and leaping fences like a champion hurdler.

Greg Derrett with Jaycee.

But who would have thought that tucked away in Aston Somerville is a young man called Greg Derrett who can genuinely be described as a world authority on dog agility?

His talent is so well-known in the agility world and his tricks of the trade so sought after that people travel from as far afield as London, Brighton and Somerset for an hour's lesson. He is also helping promote this very English pastime in the US and Canada, having been sought out especially for his expertise, and a trip to South Africa is also on the cards.

Greg is only 24 and is ready to admit he has certainly struck lucky to become one of those few fortunate souls who make a living from a hobby they would pursue for nothing.

The former Pershore horticultural college student was giving agility lessons just to pay for his studies a few years back but then it took off big time and landscape design suddenly became his trade to fall back on.

"I was lucky to be there and successful at the right time when there was a massive boom in the sport," he said, modestly.

He moved to Aston Somerville, near Evesham, from Gotherington, Cheltenham, and now gives lessons from the field near his home, from an indoor riding school at Hinton-on-the-Green and from the riding school at Cheltenham Racecourse, where he is staging his own show this month.

The reason he is in such demand is that although he's just 24 years old, he has been training his own dogs since he was 11 and teaching people for the last six years - and of course, he's simply the best when it comes to competition.

He went to local obedience classes when he got a dog at 11, then went to agility lessons and started taking his dog to shows. He began doing rather well and then others were keen to know how he did it.

"We started winning, I got addicted to it and it's turned from a hobby into a living!" he said.

Every weekend he joins a travelling village of agility junkies who home-in on shows nation-wide to enter and pit their mutts against each other, hoping to shave that vital hundredth of a second off their best times. The competitors can all tackle the 20 set obstacles efficiently nowadays, said Greg, it's just all down to who can win by the tiniest time fraction.

People get interested, have a go, realise they're too slow and generally ask Greg what they can do about it. The best advert for his training courses is that he usually wins. And here we're talking World and European championships.

Last year, his two border collies - Jaycee, aged seven, and three-year-old Fern - were placed first and third in the national championship league tables. This year, they're lying first and second.

"We are competing to win and the business relies on me continually doing it," he said but added there was still a satisfaction on the few occasions when his own pupils beat him, knowing he had helped them on their way.

The biggest championship final in the world is the famous agility showcase at the Olympia horse show which Greg won in 1997 and 1998. This is a rare occasion for people to watch on TV and it is always a popular feature of the show.

Agility has a long association with horse shows, probably because of the long horse/dog relationship thing, and former show jumpers have been known to continue a similar ringside life swapping horses for dogs. It's been called poor man's show jumping and it certainly is cheaper but it's a good job too - even right at the top, the prize money can only be described as measly.

To qualify for Olympia, there are heats all over the country to whittle down hundreds of entrants.

The prize money is just £100.

Greg obviously doesn't do agility for the prize money. So what's the attraction?

"I do it for the prestige, I suppose," he said. "I do the training as a business but I'm addicted to the sport. I love competing and I love winning."

With a realistic head on his shoulders, though, he is also studying for a Masters degree in animal behaviour ready for the time when his pupils start overtaking him and the rest of the world catches up with yet another sport we've invented. In the meantime, he plans to keep enjoying the winning and the training of some of the best agility dogs in the world.