The Spaniel Annals

I’m frequently on the look-out for a “second sport” for my dogs, one that might be more freewheeling and less intensive than the obedience training we do.    This second sport needs to fulfill these criteria:

• Doesn’t take up a lot of costly or time-consuming training time;
• Ignites and utilizes my dogs’ instincts or drives (thus making it more automatically and quickly “fun” for them);
• Simplifies my job as a handler;
• Has some photo-op opportunities.

After all, we’re supposed to be having fun, right?  And what sport seems to possess all these qualities?

Dock Diving!

Actually this new sport isn’t all that new to me.  I’ve tried it out with several of the dogs over the past 5 years or so, all of whom love to swim and retrieve. But until recently, it always ended up looking like this:

When I really want it to look like this:

For at last, I have found my dockdiving dog in Ruckus, the Irish Water Spaniel who came to visit last December and decided to stay.  Ruckus’ first formal event came at the Enumclaw shows in August at a NADD sponsored event, where he started out jumping 14′ and ended up with a personal best of 18′.   This meant he jumped himself into the Senior division in one weekend.  Quite a debut.  But more importantly, oh what photo ops there were, thanks to Richard Liebaert:

By the second time on the dock, Ruckus was shivering with anticipation while “on deck,” and his tremendous success and enjoyment fulfilled all the above critiera for me.  All I had to do was time the throw of the bumper correctly.  Pretty easy-peasy.

This inspired me to aim for an end-of-season dock-diving event in Vaughn, Washington at the end of September.  Jeff even made me a “baby dock” to use at a local lake:

Once or twice a week in August and September, a happy foursome of Ruckus, Journey, Robbie and Rozzie went Cottage Lake dock for practice and fun swims.  Ruckus continued to fly off the dock, while Journey and Robbie eventually got the idea, although Journey with more enthusiasm.

Then on September 30th, we drove out to the regional AKC approved dock-diving site, Brown Dog University in Vaughn, Washington:

Robbie  took the most coaxing.  Sure, he wanted to swim and fetch.  But oh, it was a long way down.  Finally he managed a novice leg by accidentally falling over my foot:

I had higher hopes for Journey.  She screeched in the van as other dogs were pulled out to jump.  She screeched more, dragging  me on the lead (my obedience dog) as we walked over to the dock.  She dragged me up on the dock and then…

Wiser, older dog common sense took over.  Why jump when you can simply sliiiide into the water?  Journey’s first “jump” (air quotes, air quotes) was 6 inches.  Then 18 inches.  Then at last 2 foot for a novice leg!

All of this high comedy was relieved by the star of the day, Ruckus, who showed the heavily lab-populated event what an Irish Water Spaniel can do:

And of course, more glorious photo ops:

And how did Roz do?  After many attempts to get Rozzie to jump off the dock, I opened the door to the ramp and let her have her swims her way.  Because we’re just here to have fun!