MISSOULA — The Five Valley Kennel Club Dog Show returned to Missoula and this year they added an event where dogs can show off more than just their good looks.
For the first time ever the North America Diving Dogs organization set up shop at the dog show so our canine friends could show off their jumping skills.
Jody Hudson, a judge for the organization, says invites to dog shows like this one give the sport more exposure.
“The neat thing about being at these clusters is some folks had not even heard of this as an event or as a sport,” Hudson said. “They come to watch and they think wow I think my dog could do that can we try it, and we start recruiting more dock-diving dogs.”
Victoria Probe, a dog diving trainer, says getting the dogs to jump off the docks takes a lot of training, and pushing them to jump further takes work.
“So we do a lot of work separately with fitness on the ground so when you don’t have access to a pool you have access to fitness games and things that involve building certain muscles,” Probe said. “Just because they’re high-impact sports or anytime you do big excursions on your dog you want to make sure they’re safe so fitness is a big part of the routine.”
However, for Probe, in a sport like this one, winning is not everything.
“It’s really fun to get out and do a bonding activity with your dog and then all the people get so excited about it and it’s just really the bonding aspect of it it’s not about the titles or really even pushing that far working together towards is really fun we don’t care what they do we just care that they have fun and it’s fun for our dogs.”
General meetings for the Five Valley Kennel Club are held on the fourth Tuesday of every month.
