Can Nasdaq Fly?
S.F. COMPETITION TO GIVE EXTREME CANINE ATHLETES AN OPPORTUNITY TO SOAR
BY MIKE ANTONUCCI
Mercury News
Can your dog fly?
Some of the stars of the Incredible Dog
Challenge may give that impression Saturday
morning when they're unleashed in San
Francisco, at Sharon Meadow in Golden Gate
Park.
They'll be trying to qualify for the national finals
of the canine X-Games -- the paw man's
Olympics -- in events that let them feel the
wind in their fur.
In the diving competition, for example, dogs
can take a 40-foot running start on a stage
that's 18 inches above the waterline of a pool.
The record holder -- ``one crazy Labrador that
loves water,'' says the tournament director --
sailed 24 feet, 4 inches, before splashdown.
Now there's talk of another Lab with the
potential to jump 26 feet or farther. Originally,
the pool was only 30 feet long.
``When they hit the 22-foot mark, we
purchased a 40-foot pool,'' says tournament
director Brock Fitzgerald, an executive for the
corporate sponsor, Purina.
If you think your dog can grab that much air,
you've actually got a shot at getting in the
event at the last minute. During Friday's
practice sessions, public tryouts will be
conducted in the diving and flying disc
categories.
But keep a sense of perspective: Although most dogs go up
before they come down, some never launch.
``It can happen,'' says Fitzgerald. ``Dogs who are a little unfamiliar
with the event might go to the edge and fall in.''
In the flying disc category, dogs can leap 15 feet high,
springboarding off the backs of their hunched-over owners, to
catch the spinning plastic toys in their mouths as part of a routine
set to music.
Four other events involve only preselected entrants. The top
finishers from all but the ``assistance'' category qualify for the
national championships Oct. 6 at Purina Farms in St. Louis. The
San Francisco competition is the last of five qualifying
tournaments.
In the flyball relay, dogs race head-to-head over a series of
jumps, step on a box to release a ball, grab the ball, then head
back to ``tag'' the next dog that is waiting to run.
In heat after heat of Jack Russell hurdle racing, supercharged
little Jack Russell terriers scoot over four hurdles before entering a
foam tunnel. Whoever is first out the other side -- and it's not
necessarily the first dog in -- is the winner.
In the assistance event, dogs compete to register the fastest
time in performing six tasks for a person in a wheelchair: turn on a
light switch, open a door, retrieve an item, make a payment at a
counter, bring back a beverage from a refrigerator and give the
person a kiss. This event doesn't take place at the national
championships.
The agility category is billed as the ``ultimate'' event: Among
other things, dogs have to run a weaving race through poles, clear
hurdles, jump through tires, traverse balance beams and pass
through tunnels.
The competitors in San Francisco will include Reno, a Pembroke
Welsh corgi described by owner Deborah Ogg as being like ``a
dachshund on steroids.''
Ogg, a computer programmer who lives in Los Altos, also said
her dog is smart enough to act as if he's smarter than her.
``I'll tell him to do something and then realize I made a mistake, so
I'll call him back. He knows that I told him to do the wrong thing,
and he'll bark at me.''
If Ogg messes up enough, she said, Reno will just give up. Other
dogs have been known to lose focus, too, sometimes in more
dramatic fashion.
Paul Carson, head of the company in Idaho that produces the
Incredible Dog Challenge (www.dogchow.com), cites the Jack
Russell race in which a dog left the course, bolted into the
audience and landed in the lap of a man with a large rottweiler.
``I thought, uh-oh,'' recalls Carson, ``we're going to have our first
dead dog.''
Instead, the terrier and the rottweiler jumped out of the stands to
frolic together.
``Like they were in love,'' Carson says. |
