Standing next to Dane Seidlitz at the dock at Florence Lake on a sunny Friday afternoon, a funny noise can he heard a few feet away.
It’s his one-and-a-half-year-old dog, Aegon, as he lets out a few excited squeals waiting to play tug-a-war with his owner. But it’s not all games. The duo are practicing dock diving.
Dock diving is a sport in which dogs compete in jumping for distance or height from a dock into a pool or body of water. There are different categories in the sport, such as big air, which measures how far a dog jumps, and extreme vertical, which measures the distance the dog jumps vertically off the dock.
It’s a sport Seidlitz, a Metchosin resident and co-owner of K9 Goodlife dog training, learned about while attending the Michael Ellis School for Dog Trainers in California last fall. It’s also where he met Aegon, a Belgian malinois, who was one of the school’s head trainer’s dogs at the time.
Originally bred to be a protection sport dog, Aegon wasn’t quite cutting it as he wasn’t interested in playing.
That’s when Seidlitz stepped in to help.
“I really enjoyed his personality and his work ethic, and yet he still held a really goofy mentality,” he said, adding after two and a half months of working with Aegon, Seidlitz fell in love and asked to take him home.
RELATED: Dachshund Dash dazzles Vancouver Island Pet Expo
Since then, the duo have formed a connection like no other, and have established a trust that allows them to compete in dock diving. The foundation for the sport begins with a lot of play, said Seidlitz, making sure dogs are interesting in the toy and interacting with you.
But it isn’t just about tossing the toy into the air, there’s a science behind it – how to throw the toy appropriately for the most distance and height, making sure not to throw the toy too flat or too early.
It’s the science behind the launch that Seidlitz enjoys.
“It’s trial and error and being conscious of how things are changing with each throw, and watching his stride as well,” Seidlitz said. “I enjoy how challenging it is to be consistent. I enjoy that people enjoy watching him. I love seeing the smile on his face afterward, he’s so proud of himself.”
While Aegon is relatively new to the sport, he’s finding success already.
Seidlitz and Aegon brought home a few medals from the Vancouver Island Pet Expo’s DockDogs competition earlier this month, where he won first place in the pro division for the big air category with a distance of 24 feet, five inches, and finished first in the extreme vertical category, with a height of six feet, 10 inches.
During the weekend, the duo also competed at a DockDogs competition at the Puyallup Spring Fair in Washington, where he took first place in extreme vertical with a jump of seven feet, six inches and first in the Nitro division (Aegon’s first time competing in that category) with a run of 6.5 seconds.
“You can’t force a dog to do it,” said Sara Scott, co-owner of K9 Goodlife. “It’s a clear communication of how good their connection is because otherwise, Aegon wouldn’t want to do it.”
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter
kendra.wong@goldstreamgazette.com
