I am disappointed in myself for falling behind on this blog, but writing about Margarita’s Lymphoma journey each week has prompted me to remember the whole reason I began this journal of posts in the first place:  to share all the memories that have been gifted to me by my fur-kids.  It’s important to me to be able to look back on just how blessed we are to be spending a part of our lives with each and every special 4-legged angel included in this blog.

My first “catch-up” post is the 2018 DockDogs World Championship!

This was our 4th consecutive year that we have been fortunate enough to have all competing dogs qualify for the World Championship.  Even though two out of our five do not compete, we have a “no dog left behind” policy, so we travel in our camper as a family to this exciting event!

Of course we updated all of our team “bling!”

2019 Trading Cards

Team Banner:

Team Shirts:

Special Shirt Made for Whiskey’s First Year:

RV Window Decals:

This is the 2nd year the World Championship was held in Knoxville, TN.

Getting ready to leave, and tracking our miles along our road trip:

My mom was waiting outside of her house to wish us luck!

We were worried about how Whiskey would handle such a long trip…but she didn’t seem to mind one bit!

 

 

Every year one of the DockDogs clubs puts out a Road Trip Bingo game for all team handlers to play along the way!

We did get Bingo, but did not win first place!

Some road trippin’ fun along the way:

We are HERE!!!!!!!!!!!

Check-in:

The moment we’ve all been waiting for!!!!!!

Dog Town:

The amazing lady in this next photo is one of the people who helped Whiskey (then known as “Wish”) on her freedom ride from the kill-shelter to our house in NJ. Not only did she do several legs of the transport in TN, she sent Whiskey with special treats to wish her well in her new life.  When she heard that Whiskey had made the World Championship, she booked a hotel and came out to meet us, visit with Whiskey, and watch her up on the competition dock! As you can see, the blur-that-is-Whiskey was just a “little” excited!

 

As we arrived and set up our spot in “Dog Town,” a friend of ours presented me with one of the most amazing surprises ever!

He was going to paint Whiskey in between competitions!

 

This was one of THE most thoughtful and loving gifts we had ever received!

Limoncello:  Team Coach

Cello is now retired due to heart disease.  She very much enjoyed hanging out at the team canopy and getting lots of attention from her DockDogs family!

Hooch

Hooch was fired up, but his normal 23+ foot jumps were just not there.

Round 1:

• Big Air:
  • 21′ 7″
  • 21′ 5″

Round 2:

• Big Air:
  • 21′ 0″
  • 21′ 8″

 

Lager

Round 1:

• Big Air:
  • 17’8″
  • 18’3″
• Extreme Vertical:
  • 5’8″
• Speed Retrieve:
  • 9.873 seconds
• Iron Dog Score:
  • 2579.84 points (ranked 21 overall for Round 1)

Round 2:

• Big Air:
  • 17’3″
  • 18’11”
• Extreme Vertical:
  • Double-missed (no score – which unfortunately also disqualified him from getting a qualifying Iron Dog score)
• Speed Retrieve:
  • 7.582 seconds

 

Margarita:  Team Cheerleader

Rita  enjoyed  “helping”  during  setup!  

She also enjoyed hanging out with her main-man, Mr. Spock the English Pointer!

Whiskey

This was Whiskey’s first trip to the World Championship, but not her first time in TN… Whiskey was born in TN and dumped in a kill shelter before we took her in as a foster pup with Pointer Rescue, Organization in May 2018.

Round 1:

• Big Air:
  • Timed-out (refused to jump)

Round 2:

• Big Air:
  • Timed-out (refused to jump)

Although Whiskey refused to jump, she sure put on a show for the crowd!

Although none of our competing dogs performed as well as we had hoped, we are thrilled we had another opportunity to be a part of such an exciting event, and honored to have competed against the best dogs in the World!  People asked us if we were disappointed in our dog’s performance – NEVER!  Would we have liked to have made finals?  SURE! But, what’s most important is that our dogs had a blast, we had fun competing our dogs,  and we learned from the experience.

We are very much looking forward to the 2019 Dock Diving Season!