Heading To Worlds 2009!

Yep, that's right! After a L-O-N-G and exhausting weekend in Del Mar, CA... Tractor walked away with not only two HUGE personal bests... but also an invitation to the DockDogs World Championships 2009!

We started off the weekend with Speed Retrieve on Thursday afternoon - where he somehow managed to pull off a 5.868 score - earning himself 2nd place for that wave! Friday, was all rest for T-man. I was testing out a new theory, and overall I think I was right. I rested him the entire day - and brought him out Saturday morning - and he was beyond ready to go, go, go!

Saturday was very exciting as he SQUASHED his previous personal best in Big Air of 22'10'' - and came up with not only ONE 24' jump, but two! 24'8'' and 24'2'' - he kept up his big jumps with several jumps in the 21'-23' range as well. Last up was EV, where he had some extremely tough competition, but managed to come in 4th (tie) with a last successful jump of 6'8''. The EV competition in Del Mar, was by far the most exciting one I have ever seen, even more exciting than Worlds. Two of our very own Las Vegas DockDog club members duked it out - coming in 1st and 2nd - both are now officially invited to the Worlds for EV!

Sunday was just finals for us.. starting with him earning a place in the top 8 biggest jumping dogs of the weekend. He ended up coming in 5th place in the Pro Finals, with a jump of 22'11''! Last up for the weekend was Speed Retrieve finals... even though Tractor had squashed his personal best of that this weekend as well (it was 6.215 before this weekend) - there were some amazing dogs here - breaking the 6 second mark left and right. I knew just placing in the top dogs of this group would be a huge honor.

Well, first up.. I was revving him up with a duck by our tent and ran directly to the dock for our turn... he pulled out an amazing 5.952 score.. I was THRILLED - as usually by the end of the weekend, he slows down from being tired.. and/or bored. We went and celebrated while waiting for our next turn - and again, revved him up with the duck. Our 2nd time up on the dock, I think we were sitting in 2nd place, of which I was already celebrating! Well... Tractor wanted to prove me wrong.. and pulled out a 5.772 score!!!!!! I could NOT believe it - and screamed and yelled to prove it.. We IMMEDIATELY ran to the tent for a bunch of premade raw food.

That amazing performance landed him 1st place in Speed Retrieve and since this was a World Qualifier, HE EARNED HIMSELF AN INVITE for Speed Retrieve! One of 18 dogs in the world to be invited for this, and he won it! He also, once again, came in 3rd overall for Iron Dog - bettering his score by almost 30pts!

He has no idea how proud of him I am.. after his food settled, he also got to go down to an inlet of beach water and run his heart out with his two girlfriends, Maeve and Dakarai.. and then got even more food. The next day, he got to go to a dog beach and play fetch until he passed out.

It was such an AMAZING weekend, and I could not be prouder of him and all of his accomplishments.

This week he is taking it easy, doing a little bit of agility work in the back yard, but then we are back to Phoenix this weekend for our last DockDogs event until June! After that, its all agility - so we can work on some of those titles.

Lianne is making a video for us, so I'll get that up on Youtube hopefully within a few days.. so stay tuned!