The Latest Sport You’ve Never Heard Of? DockDogs, Or Canine Aquatics.

Imagine a sport open to competitors of any athletic ability, where the rewards are cash prizes and toys, not to mention a dip in a refreshing pool.
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This might be too good to be true for humans, but it’s a reality for canines, thanks to DockDogs. This leaping and dock-diving aquatic sport — DockDogs is the official governing body — comes to Cape Cod on July 16 and 17, part of a Paw Palooza pet festival at Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School in Yarmouth. This is the Cape’s maiden DockDogs competition.

Agway of Cape Cod will host Paw Palooza, billed as the largest pet fest the Cape has ever seen. Jessica Thomas, whose family runs the regional pet supply business, is delighted to bring canine aquatics to Massachusetts.

“It’s been my dream to have a DockDogs here,” she says, especially because many dogs aren’t allowed to swim at Cape Cod beaches. She expects around 88 teams of dogs and owners from across the country, and her 73-pound dog, Sinjin — a Great Pyrenees, Siberian Husky, golden retriever, border collie mix — will compete in DockDogs Big Air event.

Paw Palooza will also feature vendors, kids activities, and guest speakers, but jumping dogs are the main attraction. DockDogs pups compete in three aquatic events: Big Air (where dogs run down a 40-foot dock and leap as far as possible into a 4-foot-deep pool to fetch a thrown toy); Extreme Vertical (think of it as four-legged high jump) where dogs lunge for a bumper suspended in the air, hitched up 2 inches with each new jump; and Speed Retrieve (where dogs swim at their speediest to retrieve a toy held by an extender arm at the pool’s end).

As for those toys: Most people use tennis balls, but one jokester brought a bloody floating plastic hand to a competition, and someone else reportedly tried to use a live raccoon, which was quickly nixed.

The sanctioned tournaments are lively and good-natured, more summertime carnival than Olympic Games. Each team comprises one dog and one handler. All breeds over 6 months old are welcome, and kids can get in on the action, too. Handlers 7 years old and older can participate. No intense training or auditioning is required.

Two of the top dogs in the sport are Labradors and Belgian Malinois, which are natural-born retrievers, but as long as a dog has “toy drive” — that is, the will to leap into the air in pursuit of an enticing object — they’re good to go.
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Therein lies the pleasure: Although many dogs train at DockDogs-sanctioned facilities, nearly any pup can give it a try. The closest training facility to Boston, complete with a 40-foot, 4-foot-deep regulation pool and 40-foot dock, is in upstate New York, though a Massachusetts facility is being built in Carver, with plans to open soon. Agway’s Thomas has trained her dog at her parents’ backyard pool just a handful of times to prepare for the big debut. For many owners and handlers, though, these competitions are akin to a beauty pageant or a Little League showdown.

“I think of it as parents who have kids who are great athletes, and they take it to a whole new level of joining teams, regional teams, and going to nationals. For a lot of us, our dogs are our children. My dogs are my life,” Thomas says. Indeed, it’s possible to attend a new competition every week, racking up wins in the hopes of reaching the world championships, held in November in Iowa.

“It’s very addictive,” says Vicki Tighe, a Florida-based program director for DockDogs, who plans to be at Paw Palooza. “A lot of our people are empty nesters, kids off to college. They have dogs, and they’re hoping for something to do.”

Many families travel to competitions each weekend, and poolside friendships naturally form. Friends grill together during the games; some events even allow camping. Strangely, there’s not the same rivalry that might exist at, say, a high school football game. It’s good, clean fun (literally, after a dip in the pool), says April Pelletier, a veterinary technician from Carver who’s also the vice president of the Beantown DockDogs club. She competes with Sarafina, a 5-year-old Australian shepherd border collie mix, and Aviva, a 1½-year-old Belgian Malinois.

Traveling with excitable dogs is often challenging, especially given that many hotels aren’t pet-friendly. Some competitors purchase passenger vans and remove the backseats to create kennels for their dogs, says Pelletier, with sensors and thermometers to ensure the dogs don’t get overheated.

And while owners take their dogs’ comfort seriously, a freewheeling outlook pervades the actual jumping. Dogs don’t need special obedience training to participate, which helps to draw newcomers. All they need is a lust for the water, a yen for toys, and a craving for the spotlight.

Boylston’s Jesse Dalton, a dog trainer by day, is president of Beantown DockDogs. The laid-back atmosphere is a refreshing switch for him and his wife, Jennifer, and their four award-winning dogs.

“Any dog can do it. It doesn’t matter what breed. We’ve seen [dogs] that we never thought would jump in, and the way that people get so happy for the dog after they jump makes it exciting,” Dalton says.

The watery venue does add extra thrills. Many competitors don’t have their own pools (or easy access to a training facility), so they opt to throw toys into lakes and ponds for makeshift training. Dogs accustomed to jumping into those surfaces often get a bit antsy before their pool debut, clearly anxious at the dock. Others make sure to strut their stuff when a jump goes well.

“If a dog misses his or her height in the Extreme Vertical, you can tell how frustrated they are. If they get their toy, they strut around with it,” Dalton says.

Tennis balls are the preferred choice, though people do get creative. Toys mustn’t be edible, and they must never have been alive.

If these rules seem a bit inventive, well, this is still a relatively new sport, and novelty is part of the allure. DockDogs only about 15 years old, originating as filler entertainment for spectators during ESPN’s Great Outdoor Games. It started as a cute sideshow with just 20 teams; now, there are 25,000 handler-and-dog combos throughout North America.

In fact, Paw Palooza expects 7,500 eager onlookers at its weekend event.

“Spectators really do go crazy,” says Pelletier. “It’s like Miss America for dogs.”

Special thanks to Kara Baskin and The Boston Globe

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