Falon’s World

This is my very first post on this new blog. I procrastinated as long as humanly possible. Eric has been badgering me for a long time now, so I decided today was the day (that would mean more except I’ve been saying that for at least a week now). I have started the ball rolling on a brand new hobby: Dock Jumping. Midas is perfect for it. He loves the water, he loves to retrieve, and he loves to jump. I am pretty nervous though. He is not so good on the leash. For the last week and a half I have been taking each of the boys for a walk (separately) and working on teaching them how to heel. Midas is doing ok. He has his moments where we can walk for quite a distance without him pulling. But, walk him past a house with a dog and that’s the end of that. Mason has whole days where he is good or bad. Usually he’s pretty good, last time I took him though, he was awful – jerking all over the place, including underneath my feet. I googled for dock jumping this week and came up with several sites with forums that were very informative and interesing. I have been actively reading dockdogs.com, ultimateairdogs.net and splashdogs.com. Another site that is very helpful as far as training goes is sportmutt.com. There is a ton of information on all of these sites though. I have taken the plunge and registered Midas in an event this Friday in Kalamazoo. I am terrified. I have already started a list of things to bring and I’ve been emailing back and forth with several amazingly nice people from the dockdogs forum who have been giving me advice. I have been told numerous times to not expect too much from Midas as this will be his first time jumping into a pool with a huge crowd and that makes a difference. Here are some photos of my crazy dog and his dock jumping in the rough skills.

This is the take off:

This is mid-jump:

And this is the almost landing:

Eric posted a pretty sweet slideshow of Midas’s jump here.

This also happened to be Mason’s first time willingly going in the water and actually swimming. He was a champion. He was very enthusiastic (although a little slower at the lunging in than Midas is), and didn’t even take the time to shake the water off between retrieves. I plan on trying him at dock jumping once he is 6 months old (those are the rules), which will be in August. I am excited.

Here’s Mason:

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