# Halo's Splash Dogs dock diving debut-pics & video



## Cassidy's Mom (Mar 30, 2003)

We took her to the Sonoma County Fair for Splash Dogs yesterday, and she had a BLAST! I signed her up for just the practice at first and Tom agreed to jump her. He guided her up the exit ramp and tossed her ball into the pool, she jumped in after it and swam back to the ramp. He did it again, and again she went right in and swam back to the ramp. Next time he took her up the stairs to the dock, threw the toy in, (started with a Kong Wubba, but went to the Orbee on a rope) and she jumped into the pool. She's never jumped off a dock before, never swam in a pool before, and this was a very distracting environment - the pool was right next to the carnival rides. One more successful practice jump and I went over to the desk to sign her up for the first wave of competition - 2 jumps back to back. She wasn't jumping very far so far, and Tom was still trying to figure out the best handling technique to use by watching what other people did, but she was having fun and jumping, which is the most important thing! :thumbup: 

First competition jump was 7 ft 7", the second one was 9 ft 2". The second wave started an hour later, and I convinced Tom to stay and do it again. He got a few more practice jumps in while I went to get some food and beer. We had a nice shady spot to park our chairs and Halo's soft crate and she was happily laying in it chewing her Orbee ball while we ate and watch some of the other dogs practice jumping. 

First jump in the second wave was 9 ft 7", and the second jump was 10 ft 11", moving her from the Splash division to Junior. By the 4th jump she was doing much better, not slowing down so much at the end of the dock before taking off, which helped her distance. I shot video of each competition jump, but I led her out too far on the first 3 and missed her hitting the water so I'm going to put some shorter clips together and make a movie, but I got all of the last and longest jump:






Here's a selection of pictures from yesterday:

Patiently waiting their turn - you can see the roller coaster in this pic










This is how close it was to the pool - that's the edge of the pool on the far right








































































































































She was SO GOOD - she met tons of people and was so sweet and friendly. We had the top of her crate unzipped and people were leaning in to pet her while she licked their fingers. Afterwards we decided to call Tom's cousin who lives not far from there to see if they wanted to meet us for a late lunch/early dinner. Turns out they were having some people over to celebrate their middle daughter's 4th birthday so they invited us to come to their house instead. There were 8 adults, 7 kids ranging in age from 3 to 8 years old, and a resident dog. She had one minor snark at Mazzie the dog but other than that she was wonderful. We did keep her on leash the whole time because there were toddlers walking around with food in their hands, but it wasn't a big deal. We were gone almost 12 hours, getting home after 10:00 last night - it was a long day of firsts for Halo I couldn't have been prouder of our girl! :wub:


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## cassadee7 (Nov 26, 2009)

That is sooo cool! Halo did great! Dock diving is super fun.


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## paulag1955 (Jun 29, 2010)

Wow, it sounds like she did great and that looks like a lot of fun! I love the two head shot photos.


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## Gracie's My Girl (May 27, 2011)

That is so neat! It sounds like everyone had a blast! Your photos are fantastic!


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## 1sttimeforgsd (Jul 29, 2010)

Halo knows how to keep cool and have fun at the same time. Nice pics, enjoyed them, thanks for sharing.


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## Cassidy's Mom (Mar 30, 2003)

This was the top dog there, a malinois who is ranked #2 for Splash Dogs 2011:










Pyro jumped nearly 25 feet - it was very impressive to watch him!


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## cta (May 24, 2011)

thank you for sharing! it looks like you all had a lot of fun. i'm so jealous i would kill for the chance to do this with my dog cuz he is such a water rat and really likes swimming and chasing after his beloved kong ball. unfortunately i'm in MA so an opportunity like this would never present itself. i liked watching the video...it was pretty cute. ps. that malinois is out of control :wild:


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## Castlemaid (Jun 29, 2006)

Go Halo!!! What a fun dog!! She sure got some air in those pics. What a great dog you got there, I bet your guys were proud.


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## JakodaCD OA (May 14, 2000)

HOW COOL !!! YAHOO HALO! Wouldn't ya just love to have one of those pools??


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## Cassidy's Mom (Mar 30, 2003)

JakodaCD OA said:


> HOW COOL !!! YAHOO HALO! Wouldn't ya just love to have one of those pools??


Yes!!! But it would take up pretty much my entire backyard, lol! :wild:


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## holland (Jan 11, 2009)

Good girl Halo-I'd love to have the ocean as my backyard


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## gsdraven (Jul 8, 2009)

:thumbup: Good girl Halo!!


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## DonP (Apr 13, 2009)

I love the picture of the flying dog with her tail up. Looks like she had a ball. I'd love to find something like that for Iska to try, but docks are hard to find.


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## Cassidy's Mom (Mar 30, 2003)

Don, docks are hard to find around here too - Splash Dogs brings their own pool and dock to their events. I know there are a couple other dock diving organizations that cover other parts of the country, maybe you can find one with events in your area. It's definitely worth trying, Halo loved it!

Splash Dogs was at the fair for 3 weeks, and they have rankings for all the dogs that jumped each week. There were 55 dogs in week 3 which included last weekend, and Halo came in 40th. Not bad considering she'd never jumped into a pool before! The two jumps in her first wave were in the Splash division, which covers 1" to 9 ft 11", but her last jump in the second wave bumped her up into the Junior division, which is 10 ft to 14 ft 11", so the competition is going to be tougher the next time!


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## valb (Sep 2, 2004)

Shoot, I wish I'd known, I would have come to the fair to watch
her!!

If you do it again next year, please let me know before hand,
it looks like soooo much fun!

Did they announce the breeds of dogs at all?


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## Bridget (Apr 5, 2004)

Great job Halo! She really steadily improved a lot on her jumps! We do dock dogs with our labs and really enjoy it. Haven't gotten to participate much this summer though. I really miss it. You don't see a lot of GSDs on the dock.


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## Cassidy's Mom (Mar 30, 2003)

Val - d'oh! I never thought to let you know, but you're so close I should have. I will definitely let you know the next time, hopefully it will be a regular thing there. They were at the Solano County Fair too, but not for as long, I think just a few days rather than the entire duration of the fair. They did announce the breeds, and the statistics on the Splash Dogs website do too: Splash Dogs - Weld County Fair Rankings

I see two other GSDs listed for week 3, but neither of them were there on Saturday. Labs dominate in numbers by far, I think the announcer said that something like 75% of the dogs participating in the sport are labs, but they don't necessarily dominate the stats. 

Bridget, she was definitely getting the hang of it. At first she ran down the dock but slowed at the end, right before she jumped. She was still putting on the breaks a little by the last jump, but it was much better. Tom was working on his handling skills too, trying to figure out the best way to throw the toy and which toy to use, whether to place the toy in the water, back her up and release her or put her in a stay and then release and throw, so it was a learning process for both of them. 

I just love that he's got a fun activity to participate in with her. She's his baby girl :wub:, but he's not a dog trainer by any means, so something that they can just go out and do without a lot of advance training is great.


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## Cassidy's Mom (Mar 30, 2003)

Wow, you can search the Splash Dogs site by breed and year - Halo is #24 out of 51 GSDs jumping in 2011! :groovy:

ETA: And #31, lol! They have me listed as a handler for her as well as Tom, so she's in the stats twice: http://www.splashdogs.com/events/results/genBreedResults.php
Oh, wait - they count each wave of competition in the stats, so there were 51 jumps, not actually 51 different dogs. I'm so confused!


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## Cassidy's Mom (Mar 30, 2003)

I went through the rankings and counted the actual number of GSDs - it's hard to believe but there were only 16 GSDs jumping in Splash Dogs competitions this year. Halo's longest jump ranks her at #7 of those 16.


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## Scarlettsmom (Jul 12, 2011)

Scarlett would never do that. It's too close to getting a bath.  I LOVE to watch it when we go to Bark in the Park. Scarlett usually pulls and says she wants to go see the other dogs...not get wet.


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## NewbieShepherdGirl (Jan 7, 2011)

Wow it looks like that would be so much fun!


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## Lynn_P (Mar 17, 2004)

This is so cool!!! Halo seems like a natural.. and that she loves it.


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## Cassidy's Mom (Mar 30, 2003)

Lauri's dock diving thread with Mauser reminded me I never uploaded the rest of my videos to youtube. So here they are!

She went into the pool off the exit ramp twice in practice, and since she's already wet in this video this must have been the second jump:






This was her first practice jump off the dock:






And the first wave of competition, jump # 1 & #2 - 7 ft 7" and 9 ft 2":











The 2nd jump of the 2nd wave, her 4th competition jump, is the first video I posted. It's the only one that I got the entire jump. The first 3 jumps I led her out too far based on her speed down the dock, but since she slowed down right before she jumped I missed her entry into the water.


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## wildo (Jul 27, 2006)

These shots/video are so awesome! How lucky that you have two people (you and husband) so that you can get great photos!

"Kong Wubba, but went to the Orbee on a rope"

Will any Kong Wubba float?


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## Cassidy's Mom (Mar 30, 2003)

I don't know if they'll all float, I had the one for water. I bet you could check the Kong site and find out though. 

This is the only sport that Tom will do, he's not really into dog training, but if you're just doing this for fun there's not a lot of training required. You can just go out there and jump!


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