August 29, 2008

Jordan, a chocolate Lab, twice broke the world record last month in Dock Jumping. (Photo Courtesy of Shawn McCarthy)

STILLWATER, Minn. –- A chocolate Labrador from Iowa, once the runt of his litter, has achieved an athletic feat that not even Michael Phelps can boast, setting world records in the same pool event twice in three days.

Jordan, a 16-month-old female, broke the world record in Speed Retrieve at last month’s Dogs and Logs World Championships, which features separate competitions for lumberjacks and dockdogs. For dogs, the event is the doggy Olympics for dock jumping.

Speed Retrieve tests the dog’s speed swimming abilities. After getting a running start on a dock, dogs jump into a pool and are timed on how quickly they can retrieve a duck at the end of it.

After first breaking the world record with a time of 5.32 seconds, three days later Jordan eclipsed that mark in the finals at 5.25 seconds.

“I didn’t expect it at all,” said Jordan’s owner, Sean McCarthy, 36, of Carolville, Iowa. “I was just hoping to make the finals, and she set the world record. And then in the finals she broke her own world record.

“I felt like Michael Phelps.”

Jordan’s performance was particularly satisfying to McCarthy because the dog has been competing for just eight months.

“When she broke that first world record, I was just so ecstatic,” he said. “She jumped up in my arms and she was excited and going crazy. She doesn’t usually do that, so I am sure she fed off our excitement too.

“She certainly got a lot of treats, and a big bone, and a lot of hugs and misses from everyone.”

This year’s Dogs & Logs World Championships, featured 50 of the best dogs from all over North America. Fans traveled thousands of miles for their dogs to compete in Speed Retrieve, Big Air and Extreme Vertical.

Big Air requires dogs to run down a 40-foot dock, dive into the pool and retrieve their toy, all while being judged on the length of their jump.

Extreme Vertical challenges dogs to jump for height as they grab a bumper suspended five feet above the water. With each successful catch, the height increased by two inches until there is only one winner.

For the first time this year, 11 dogs competed in a fourth event that combined all three individual disciplines, the first ever Dock Dogs Iron Dog combination.

Despite a tornado-like storm during the four-day competition, it attracted more than 200,000 spectators.

McCarthy never intended to get his dog into competitions, having always owned “couch potato lap dogs,” he said. When his 17-year-old Dachshund died last year, McCarthy says he was not planning on getting another dog, but he started missing having one around.

Having stolen McCarthy’s heart, Jordan sleeps in his bed and gets the royal treatment at doggy day care while he is at work. The dockdog competitions help their bond grow.

“I wasn’t sure I wanted to get another dog because of the heartache that goes with them passing away, and the knowing you will outlive them,” McCarthy said. “But after a month, I started to go a little stir crazy.

“She’d be considered my child, and my parents consider her their grandchild,” he said of Jordan.

For more information, visit DockDogs.com.

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Pet Pulse reporter Joey Wahler, PressCitizen.com and CanadasGuideToDogs.com contributed to this report.