Sunny Saturday dock diving

Cooper LOVES dock diving. He loves to run and chase the toy into the water. Russ said that one of my throws was perfect — it kept the toy just inches in front of Cooper’s mouth. He flew through the air, mouth wide open, straining to catch the toy. Don’t think we got a picture of that, though (darn it!)

Tooey really improved this time out. Last time, she mostly just kind of fell off the puppy dock. Today, we decided to let Cooper show her what to do.

Tooey and Cooper jump off the puppy dock

Cooper flies and Tooey jumps off the puppy dock

Tooey did begin to get the idea. So, while Cooper jumped off the big dock…

Cooper jumps off the big dock

… Tooey did her own jumps off the puppy dock. And she did them in her own style — run to the end of the dock, stop, make sure the toy is still in the water, and then jump.

Tooey does a solo jump off the puppy dock

Her current style is not award-winning, but it does get her what she wants: to go swimming. Tooey really loves the swimming. There was even a time or two when she didn’t come straight back to the exit ramp because she wanted to swim just one more minute.

Tooey retrieves the Wubba

Finally, we had to leash up and go home. Even the best dock jumping on an amazing sunny and warm February day has to end sometime.

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Tooey slides off the dock

Thank goodness for Cooper. He’s taught us so many things, including that a dock-diving natural doesn’t necessarily start off with a bang.

Cooper started dock diving by falling off the dock. That scared him, and put him off the sport for a year. So mindful of that, we decided that whatever Tooey did her first time on the dock is fine.

Today, the Cascade Dock Dogs had a practice at the pond, so we decided to give it a try. Tooey didn’t exactly jump off the puppy dock — it was more of a purposeful slide-off. But she went from dry to wet, and had a good time doing it. Take a look:

A dry Trice and Tooey

Checking out the puppy dock

See? There's water in there...

Tooey slides into the water

Tooey swims for the wubba

And she grabs it!

Shakes off

And gets ready to try it again

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Introducing shotguns to the training mix

Andy introduces shotguns to Patrick

Training for hunt trials and hunting can be two distinct activities. And the different organization  that offer hunt trials, such as the American Kennel Club and the United Kennel Club, add even more complexity.

Andy prefers the trials presented by the UKC over the AKC because he thinks the UKC trials represent a more natural hunting scenario to the dogs and handlers. One element is the use of guns and live fire over the dog as it would occur in a duck blind.

So the first step in his process is to include an unloaded shotgun at the line, cock it, point it down range in the direction of the ducks, and dry fire on an empty chamber at the time of the launch of a duck or dummy. If the dog is smart, they will associate the muzzle direction with where to look so they can accurately mark the fallen duck.

In time, live fire will be added after the dog is steady at the line (not bolting before being released) and improving in their marking skills.

As I was standing back with the camera for this photo, Andy was demonstrating with another IWS named Patrick. After this demo, Cooper and I came to the line and repeated the process. His steadiness is getting really good, and his introduction to live gun fire will occur this week.

Andy reports that his steadiness for water entries still needs a bit more work as his excitement at demonstrating his “dock diving” skills sometimes over-rides his discipline. Andy has remarked that his water entries are rather spectacular for a rookie trainee, but then, Andy has yet to see Cooper in his civilian job as dock diver extraordinaire.

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Cooper as catalyst

In the many moments of frustration with Cooper, the thought that I got the wrong dog has crossed my mind several times. But, I have to say, that I’m glad we got Cooper. This weekend provides a prime example of why.

Cooper and I competed in the Muddy Paw’s “Fun Fair All” flyball tournament this weekend in Salem, Oregon. Cooper did really well, earning his FDX title (more on that in another post). In addition, our team won 3rd place in our division. Both of these are better-than-I-hoped-for results.

It’s been a difficult and often discouraging experience training Cooper for flyball because he likes to go running off into the other lanes (which makes the team lose that heat, no matter how well the other dogs on the team have done).

But, this weekend, with the help of all my teammates, Cooper did really amazingly well.

And that gets to what I’m grateful for. With a less driven dog, I would have done what originally I expected I’d do with my water dog — go on hikes and walks, play fetch, go boating, have a companion, and generally hang out.

But with Cooper, I have been forced out of my shy shell and into (gasp!) a team sport.

I have never played team sports — never wanted to, never thought I’d be good enough for, never found any sport interesting enough, etc.

But here I am, on a team, playing a team sport.

Cooper and Patrice at the start of his run in a flyball heat

Patrice and Cooper as he finishes his run

And on top of that, I’ve joined several clubs — also amazing for me (I never join clubs) — X-Fidos flyball club, Cascade Dockdogs club, and IWSCOPS.

So thank you, Tammy and Rosemary, for Cooper. He’s been my catalyst.

(And thanks to Laci for the pictures.)

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Cooper’s sports bios

All sports stars have their own web pages, right? Well, Cooper’s got two. Here’s Cooper’s flyball page:

You’ll find it at http://www.x-fidos.org/id87.htm. Once you get there, you can click “Back to the Team” or the other links along the left to see bios of the other team members.

And here’s the Cascade Dockdogs page:

(arrow added)

You can find this page at http://www.cascadedockdogs.org/members.htm, along with the other club members bios.

Woo hoo!

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Personal best is even better

Cooper and I spent today dock diving with the Cascade Dock Dog club at the pond, where he got a new personal best!

Cooper just loves, loves, loves this, possibly to the point of obsession. As soon as we got off the dock, he dragged me back to get onto the dock to do it again. I mean that literally. At one point, Jeremy offered to help me hold Cooper, and Jeremy got dragged, too.

(I know, I know — I should be using a pinch collar, or a harness, or something…)

Some amazing jumps

All that practice paid off: By mid-afternoon, during the mock competition, Cooper’s two jumps both measured in (unofficially) at 19 feet!

taken by Laci Wentland

The people who were doing measuring were caught by surprise — they were expecting the 14.5 feet he did last time, and had to do a quick shuffle along the side of the pond to get a good measurement.

What we did this time

I followed Tammy’s advice to make him down-wait at the back of the dock. Then, only when I was ready, did I release him to run. (It took several repetitions to convince him that I really meant down and wait.) By the time I was ready, Cooper was a coiled spring.

I want to thank one of my fellow X-Fido flyball team members, Laci, who brought her camera and her lab-pointer mix Marley to the practice.

She got some great pictures, and Marley, a first timer, got an amazing 18′!

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Personal best: 14.6 feet

In Cooper’s first real dock diving event (Northwest Challenge Xtreme Air Dogs Competition during the Multnomah County Fair), he jumped his best recorded distance: 14.6 feet. As I had predicted, the real limitation is still my throws. I really need to give the chase toy a bit more loft, make it go straighter, and a little farther out. I also have to absolutely insist that Cooper WAIT at the start of the dock until I tell him it’s okay to run. He gets so excited that he cheats, and I get so rattled that I let him. Bad handler!

Tammy and Steve came out to the fair with Russ and me. Tammy took Cooper on a couple of jumps, so I could watch a master at work. Meanwhile, Steve and Russ both took some great photos.

Athlete and Coach Tammy conferring

And my favorite photo of the day, taken by Steve:

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How to get a dog to stop pulling on a leash

Today, Cooper and I went out to the pond to practice dock diving with the Cascade Dock Dogs club. It was a very warm, sunny day — unseasonably so for the Portland area. I was sure that everyone would be out there, but happily, it wasn’t too crowded.

Cooper got lots of jumps and a lot of swimming. All morning, I don’t think I was ever more than 7th in line (although Cooper still does not understand the concept of “line” or “turns”), and for every turn we had 3 jumps. Then in the afternoon, we had an informal competition, and Cooper got 17.5′ — definitely an improvement. (Cooper does great — It’s me who needs to improve my throwing.)

All the way home Cooper slept in the back seat of the car, and then late this afternoon, we both napped for an hour. Then it was time for our evening walk.

And here’s the thing. Cooper walked behind me, at the end of the leash, almost all the way. It was amazing. It was like walking our old dearly departed Cleo, who never saw any reason to go faster than a leisurely stroll.

So when the  trainers tell you that a tired dog is a good dog, they must also mean that a really tired dog is an excellent dog.

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That big empty space actually has water in it — Oh boy!

At last year’s Northwest Pet & Companion Fair, Cooper refused to jump. NW Air Dogs had set up a pool and a dock for a charity event inside the Portland Expo Center. For quite awhile, Coop had been jumping into ponds and rivers from the bank, but he hadn’t jumped off a dock, and he certainly hadn’t jumped into a pool.

Human-made pools are strange. Everything’s all clear and blue. You can’t really see the bottom. So even if we admit that there is some water in there, there’s no way to tell how deep it is. Too deep? Too shallow? Who knows? Cooper decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and declined.

This year the light switched on. And Cooper jumped. Boy, did he jump. And jumped, and jumped, and jumped again. See for yourself:

At work, I’ve been writing recently about the importance of doing enough “pleasant activities” every day to keep one’s mood upbeat. This weekend, I overflowed with pleasant activities. The picture below shows how happy both Coop and I were after today’s dock diving. The ribbon is for a 14.5′ jump — 2nd place in the day’s friendly competition!

Hugs for a job well done!

Thanks to my sweet husband for taking this bright, warm, sunny, perfect boat-building-weather morning off from working on the boat to come and take pictures!

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Cooper can fly — dock diving, part 2

Today, we decided to give dock diving another try. A local club, Cascade Dock Dogs, practices in a pond about an hour southeast of Portland. If you took a look at an earlier post, this practice took place at the same pond.

Last time, as you might remember, Cooper fell off the big dock. Jumping was not involved.

Today, though, was a different story. After several practice jumps off the puppy dock, Cooper figured it out. He got almost 11 feet off the big dock. Not quite up to daddy Balloo’s standards of 21′. (Yet.)

chasing the wubba toy off the edge

in mid-air

touch down

tail-butt junction lines up at almost 11 feet

We’re considering trying it out in an indoor pool next weekend at the Northwest Pet and Companion Fair. It’ll depend — will he be too tired out from the flyball contest earlier in the day, or will that just rev him up for more action?

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Introduction to dock diving

On the puppy dock

Off the puppy dock

Grabbing the bumper

Dock diving looks fun. In theory: I mean, what’s not to love? There’s water, toys, other dogs. And Daddy (Balloo) is a champion dock diver — he’s gotten 21′ jumps off the dock.

Coop had a great time on the puppy dock, which is about 1’ high off the water. He has to be shown that the idea is to jump off the dock, not go from the dock to the ground next to it, and then into the water. But he did get the point eventually.

Falling off the big dock

The big dog dock was another matter entirely. Cooper kind of fell off the 2’ high dock the 1st time, and couldn’t be persuaded to jump off the end again. We got lots of help, suggestions, and sympathy. One other owner told us it took about a year for the switch in her dog’s head to get turned on, so we’ll just keep trying.

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