Tom's Blog

August 5th, 2008

2008 Dogs and Logs World Championship
Rocky and I had been training all year with hopes of getting an invite to the 2008 STIHL Dogs & Logs World Championships held in beautiful Stillwater, MN on July 24th – 27th, 2008. With just a few weeks to go before the Big Event, we received the phone call we had been waiting for. Rocky and I qualified in Speed Retrieve®, Extreme Vertical®, and the first ever Iron Dog, an event similar to the Iron Jack competition in which the dog competes in Big Air®, Extreme Vertical and Speed Retrieve.

Rocky and I had an awesome time at the 2008 Dogs & Logs World Championship. Along with the 2001 ESPN Great Outdoor Games in Lake Placid, NY this was the most beautiful setting for a championship and was the largest, most enthusiastic crowd yet.

We started out on Thursday with the Extreme Vertical portion of the Iron Dog competition. Rocky struggled a bit, but was not the only one. His performance was good enough to place him tied for 3rd place overall. Later that afternoon, we had the individual Speed Retrieve competition. We new the fastest dogs in the country were going to be no easy task for us to over come. That little power house I call Rocky was completely locked and ready to go for this event.  He turned in the second fastest time of the event and a personal best time of 6.25 seconds which earned him a spot in the finals on Sunday.

Friday brought the Speed Retrieve portion of the Iron Dog competition. Rocky proved he was still ready to show the world he had world class speed and turned in a fast 6.4 second run which was good enough to put him in 2nd place overall in the Iron Dog rankings.

Saturday brought the Big Air portion of the Iron Dog competition, the last of the three competitions where, at the end, the Iron Dog Champion would be crowned. Rocky has been struggling in Big Air throughout the season but somehow, this power house knew this was the big show and pulled out a HUGE 21’ 8” jump. The competition was staggering, and when all was said and done, Rocky slipped a few points and ultimately ended up with a 3rd place finish in the first ever Iron Dog competition.

Not bad…

Sunday, the BIG FINALS day had finally arrived. Speed Retrieve was up. Rocky was one of the eight fastest dogs in the world, but we knew we had our work cut out for us. After the first round of jumps, we found ourselves with a 6.5 second run, which was not enough to get us in to the final four. A little pep talk with Rocky and a hard hole shot on the second run and Rocky was able to turn in a burning 6.31 which earned him a spot in the final four. It came down to Rocky and a bullet from Canada. After the Canadian speedster turned in a ripping 6.25, we knew we had to pull out another Personal Best to move on. Rocky gave it everything he had only to come up 4 100ths of a second shy. His score of 6.29 was good enough to earn him the recognition of the 3rd fastest dog in the world.

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