Iggy Competed at Dock Diving Nationals!

Wow! It’s been quite a week! We’re on the last leg of our journey home today, and can’t wait to share more of our story when we get home.

When we got to the competition, we couldn’t help but feel a little nervous about how Iggy might perform. Not only was he coming off a few days of travel and new hotel stays, but this event was busy, which is not something we’re normally used to.

Compared to the handful of family and friends that might be spectating at normal competitions, at nationals there was a consistent large crowd of people gathered around the pools to watch. While that doesn’t really bother us humans much, we anxiously wondered what impact it might have on Iggy. Would he get distracted by the people? Would the noise make him skittish?

Despite all of this, Iggy did successfully compete in the NADD National Championships. Fortunately Iggy wasn’t bothered by all of the distractions – with his legs shaking with pent up excitement, he couldn’t help but charge down the dock at full speed and throw himself in the water. The commentator even stated something along the lines of “He’s really fast down that 40 foot dock;” a statement that we believe summarizes very well how Iggy approaches dock diving. 

As he diligently paddled his way back to the dock with the bumper in tow, it was clear to us that dock diving is just too stimulating for him to care about anything else. But I suppose it’s just in his nature. He loves to work, and when he has a job to do it becomes the sole object of his undivided attention. 

That’s not to say that the added distractions weren’t a factor. Some of the other dogs in the competition refused to jump, and it certainly seemed like they were either spooked by the people or the unfamiliar environment. Having seen that, we were ultimately really proud that Iggy was able to jump with so much focus. 

His final recorded results consisted of 15’9” for his first jump and 15’8” for his second. While these were a couple feet short of his average jump distance and certainly not far enough to place, we think we can call this a success given this was his first big competition. Overall, this got us really excited to continue with other competitions, and we look forward to seeing how he improves as time goes on!