Great American Dawg Jump, Part 1

July 2, 2011

Athens, GA

Today, Tessa entered her first Dock Diving (DD) competition, at the Great American Dawg Jump in Watkinsville, GA.

From her sessions in the pool I guessed that she should be capable of jumping 8-10 feet which would place her at the upper end of the Novice division (1" - 9'11"). Never having formally practiced at a DD dock, and not having decided on the technique yet ("place and send" or "chase" method), Novice and a lot of fun was all I expected. We were in Wave 1 (each wave consisted of 40 dogs) and her official score was 8 feet which got her a nice ribbon for Third Place Novice Wave 1, and a chance of making it into the Novice finals (after nine Waves, the best 6 dogs of each division advance to the finals).

Foolishly, I got carried away in all the excitement and spontaneously entered Tessa in Wave 2. And lo and behold, she surprised me with a 11'6" jump - that is Junior Division (10' - 14'11")! It is at the lower end of that division, so no placement, but we got another nice participation ribbon. Awesome, Tessa!

The next day I was checking out the preliminary Novice finals line-up and was suprised not to see us listed. Little did I know that the Junior jump of 11'6" had disqualified her from the Novice finals, because for this event she was now considered a Junior dog.

To be continued ...