Say what?

Yup, you read that right.  Pips got invited to the 2018 North American Diving Dogs/AKC National Championships presented by Eukanuba.

How, you might ask, does a dog who’s brand new to dock diving get a national championship invite?  Basically, it’s kismet.  Not Kismet the dog who also does dock diving.  Kismet, fate, destiny, whatever you want to call it.  Or….well, maybe it’s just dumb luck.  You be the judge:

It all started when we took Piper to her second dock diving trial on Labor Day weekend at Gold Country Pet Resort in Ione, CA in the hopes of earning her first title.  She was working on a junior division title, which means she only needed to log two more qualifying jumps with a distance between 10′ and 14’11”.  Seemed easy, since her first three jumps the month before came in at 11’6″, 11’6″, and 11’9″.

Well, I don’t know if she ate her Wheaties that morning or what, but her first jump on September 1st was 15’4″.  Second jump?  15’2″.  Third and final jump?  14′ even.  That means she ended the day with four jumps towards a junior title and two jumps toward a senior title.  Since you need five qualifying jumps to earn a title, we left empty handed.  Booooo!  I tried to be proud of her for jumping her personal best, but I wanted to log that first title sooooooooo bad.

The next day, after I got home, I started thinking about something I heard at one of the handler meetings, something about the trial being a national championship qualifier where the two dogs with the highest average scores in each division get an invite.  But how did it work with a dog like Piper who split divisions?  Apparently, it’s all about averages.

Was Piper’s average of her three jumps that weekend high enough to earn her a qualifying spot in the junior division for nationals?  You bet your sweet ass it was!!!!! Ben and I ran the math and we *think* she earned the first spot, but maybe it was the second.  It’s not like either of us has an MBA in finance or accounting or something numbers-related.  Hehe!  Anyway, that’s how Piper secured her national championship invite at her second ever dock diving trial, before even earning a title.

Such a friggin’ little rockstar.

PS:  We went back to Ione the next weekend and logged two more jumps in the junior division (14’3″ and 14’0″).  That means Piper officially earned her first title: Dock Junior (DJ).  Wooooohooooo!