'Very Bad' Rescue Dog Was 'Kicked Out' of Obedience School. Now, She’s Heading to the World's Biggest Dog Show

Talk about an underdog!

After Jessica Gibson adopted Zola, a former stray, the pup was kicked out of obedience school for bad behavior. Three years later, she's headed to the world's biggest dog show, Gibson told the BBC.

Gibson, a 19-year-old from Limavady, Ireland, appeared on BBC Radio Foyle's North West Today program on Monday, March 3, to discuss how she and Zola—a collie with black, white, and tan coloring—went from expulsion to competition.

The pair is heading to Birmingham, England, on Thursday, March 6, to compete in Crufts, an international dog show hosted in the U.K. Gibson told the BBC that the scenario once seemed impossible, given Zola's old behavior around other dogs.

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When she first adopted the collie from Pet FBI, an animal rescue, about three years ago, the canine was enthusiastic immediately. "She was very excited," Gibson recalled, and "she was jumping up on the side of the kennel, and she was just buzzing to get out."

She told the Irish outlet Derry Now that she and Zola "just had this instant connection" and "understood each other straight away."

"She had been found as a stray," Gibson added of Zola, "so not much was known about her background, but I could tell she was special.”

However, the high-energy pup quickly ran into trouble when her new owner enrolled her in obedience school. Zola "got kicked out," Gibson told the BBC. When asked why she was expelled from the training program, the owner said, "She was very bad — her and other dogs."

But the pet-owner duo has been training regularly ever since, entering and winning "a few fun competitions." Now, Zola is a Young Kennel Club grad and has qualified for Crufts, where she will run, twirl, and jump in one of the dog show's agility competitions later this week.

"We had started agility training two years ago," Gibson told the BBC. "And it's been a very long, very hard journey. There's been lots and lots of setbacks, but we're doing really well."

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"I've put in a lot of work with her myself," the owner said. Particularly, she added, to get Zola "to focus around other dogs and in public."

It's a good thing Zola has studied up—competing in Crufts is no small feat. Organized by The Kennel Club, the U.K. competition is the biggest show of its kind in the world. According to the Crufts website, last year's show attracted 24,000 dogs, 155,000 visitors, and 8.7 million viewers.

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When asked if she always wanted to participate in something like Crufts, Gibson admitted that she "always liked watching agility, but it seemed so out of reach" given her rescue's struggles with etiquette.

"And I didn't think that Zola would've been the dog for it once I got her, and I realized that she had lots of problems," Gibson added, "but we worked through them."

Regardless of Thursday's outcome, Gibson is proud of Zola's progress and journey. "I'm over the moon — I cannot get over how far she's come," she told the BBC.

"She's nowhere like the dog she used to be."

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