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Zip the dog runs agility course in wheelchair

Nicole Ducouer tackles her latest dare -- training a regal border collie for a dog show.

In 2011, Zip the border collie, a five-time canine agility championship winner, was hit by a car and left a paraplegic.

After several months of therapy, the 9-year-old dog was fitted with a custom wheelchair with all-terrain wheels to help her get around and resume her active lifestyle.

When her owners brought Zip to an agility practice, she immediately embraced the course.

"We went to the start line. I turned and looked at Zip and saw the hunger in her eyes as she looked forward; not at me, but at the line of jumps ahead of her," Zip's owner, Sue Cohen, told pet blogger Linda Cole.

"A friend and my husband decided to put the bars down on the course and I was handed a leash attached to Zip’s wheelchair. They said, 'Run her.' I had reservations but Zip was gleefully barking by this time. We ran and she did great. She now practices all the time," Cohen, told CNN.

Even with the bars removed, Zip still jumps with her wheelchair as best she can.

Watch the inspirational dog at the Five Flags Dog Training Club in Pensacola, where a Glory Run for Retired Agility Dogs was held less than a year after Zip's accident, below:

"Zip has taught me many lessons but, having a disability myself, the most significant lesson is that you can’t let a disability keep you on the sofa," Cohen told CNN. "So many have told me that Zip has inspired them, that they were going through a difficult time in their life and that Zip gave them hope, or that she encouraged them to grab a problem by the horns and deal with it."