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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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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