Nancy has been involved in dog agility for over 30 years. She was active in competition and pet obedience, tracking and behavior counseling for pet owners before discovering agility in 1990.
Nancy and her husband Jim Basic operate Power Paws Agility in San Jose California where they teach weekly classes, private lessons and workshops. Since 2001 Power Paws has hosted Annual Agility Camps. For years those camps were held in conjunction with Clean Run Magazine. In the early days of the annual Camps they hosted up to 300 students and 25 instructors. Camps scaled back over the years and now they are held in Northern California locations or at Power Paws Agility in San Jose. Nancy is a full-time International agility instructor, coach, competitor and seminarian and has taught in Japan, Korea, Australia and all over the United States including Hawaii and Alaska. She has been the Coach of the AKC/USA World Team since 1996, helping that team bring home many medals.
Nancy’s first book “Alphabet Drills” was published by Clean Run in 2011. Just this month she released her second book, based on articles from Clean Run Magazine- titled, Patterns and Number Drills. Her rewrite of the first Alphabet Drills book is due out soon. She wrote monthly articles for Clean Run since 1995. She has also written for Dog World, and the AKC Gazette and has been published internationally. For many years she also wrote a blog, nancygyes.wordpress.com.
She was a member of the AKC World Team 7 times; four years with her border collie Scud and three years with her border collie Riot. Nancy and her border collie Ace represent the USA at the European Open Team 4 times, winning a Bronze medal in 2009. Nancy was the first American Handler to win a medal at the European Open, and to this date this has only been accomplished by one other American handler
She has won 8 National/World Championship Titles in USDAA & AKC, and has been on the Winning Team for the Dog Agility Masters Tournament two times. Nancy was the first handler ever to win USDAA National/World Championships 4 years in a row. Scud-1998, Riot-1999, Wicked-2000, and Riot again in September 2001 and in later years won the Performance and Veterans Championships with Scud and Riot. Nancy & Jim and their dogs have won over 70 first place trophies at USDAA Nationals and the Cynosport World Games. Seven of her dogs have earned the USDAA ADCh, Scud, Riot, Wicked, Panic, Ace, Toast, Winston. Nancy has put eight MAD titles on dogs in six jump heights—12-18-22-24-26-and 30-inch—Scud, Riot, Wicked and Panic (Border Collies), Ace, and Winston, Hopscotch, and Toast (All Americans). Scud attained a MACh towards the end of his career while struggling with Lymphoma and Riot and Wicked achieved AKC MACh 3 as well as the coveted 500 legs Platinum award in USDAA. Scud was the 30 inch National Champion in 1998 and retired with a win of the Performance Grand Prix in 2001.
Riot won the performance Grand Prix in 2004 and 2005 and she won the Veterans Grand Prix in 2006. Riot retired from National Competitions with 2 first places in Championship Grand Prix, 2 National AKC Championships,2 firsts in Performance Grand Prix, and the Veterans win in 2006 Grand Prix.
Both Riot and Wicked completed the USDAA Platinum 500 lifetime qualifying scores in August of 2007.
- FCI World Championship Team Member 96,97,98, 99, Scud
- USDAA National Champion 1998, 30 inches, Scud
- FCI World Championships 1999, Scud 6th place overall
- USDAA National Champion1999, 24 inches Riot
- USDAA National/World Champion 2000, 26 inches Wicked
- USDAA National/World Champion 2001, 22 inches Riot
- FCI World Championships Team Member, 2001,02,03, Riot
- USDAA National/World Champion Veterans, 2001, Scud
- AKC National Champion 2001, 24 inches Riot
- AKC National Champion 2002, 24 inches Riot
- AKC Overall International Champion, 2002, 26 inches, Riot
- AKC World Team Invitational, May 2003, 1st place Riot
- FCI World Championships 2001, Riot 2nd place Individual Agility Class
- FCI World Championships 2002, Riot 1st place Individual Agility Class
- AKC Nationals, 3rd place, 20 inches 2004 Wicked
- USDAA National DAM Team Champions, Scud, Nifty, Lily, 1997
- USDAA National DAM Team Champions, Wicked, Spy, Trigger 2004
- USDAA National/World Champion Performance, 2004 Riot
- USDAA National/World Champion Performance, 2005 Riot
- USDAA National/World Champion Veterans, 2006 Riot
Nancy has 4 dogs now. A 13 year old male border collie named Scoop that is retired, a ten year female border collie named Shepherd’s Pie, a 7 year old male border collie named Mojo and her youngest is a 3 year old Border Collie/Jack Russell cross named Mockingjay that she just began competing with in December 2021. They are off to a great competitive start having just won a USDAA Grand Prix and Steeplechase qualifier on only her 9th day of competition with Mockingjay.
