This past weekend I competed in Extreme Verticle or ‘EV’ as it’s called for the very first time at a competition just outside of Chicago Illinois. What a blast that was! DockDogs is a very fast rising dog sport with 3 different types of venues that you can get into. They have ‘Big Air’, ‘Speed Retrieve’ and ‘Extreme Verticle’, which I competed in. They always have these shows in big venues so it’s great because there is always a very big crowd, and any dog can have fun and do it.

I entered my youngest dog ‘Rex’, who is a Belgian Malinois, and is 14 mos. old. Rex started at 6 feet, and with 2 inch incremental rises with the rest of the field, made it all the way to 7 feet successfully. The winner actually was the only one in the field to jump 7 feet 2 inches, and Rex missed both of his attempts at that. Every dog gets 2 attempts at each height, and eventually there is only one dog left. Lots and lots of fun, and definetly get your dog out to Dockdogs if you get a chance. Great way to exercise them in the summer heat as well. If anyone is interested in joining our Las Vegas Dock Dogs group, you can email Lianne at liannehassen@sitmeanssit.com

Here is a press release from DockDogs on the event:

Written by DockDogs Admin
Sep 03, 2008 at 12:00 AM

Medina, OH September 3, 2008: An exciting spectacle of fireworks, food from across the nation, and dozens of well known bands from all types of music were no match for the thousands of spectators waiting in anticipation and excitement of DockDogs.

In the second year at “On The Waterfront”, DockDogs was more desired than ever with hundreds of people coming out for every competition to see how far, how high, and how fast these dogs could jump.

With almost 50 dogs competing in every wave, competition was evident right from the start. Veteran and new competitors took to the dock in front of a roaring crowd trying to get into the top 24 spots for the DockDogs finals. Though the heat was high, with little relief, these dogs pushed through and challenged their bodies to stretch for every inch.

In our Extreme Vertical competition, 18 dogs came out to see what new heights they could reach. Those 18 dogs continued to put on an exciting show as the bumper came down time after time. Personal bests were made by Dave and Jumpin George in the tourney, making it all the way to 6′ 10″, and for Fred and Rex, who had never competed in EV, making it all the way to 7′. But it was the personal best of Don and Huckleberry, at 7′2″, that held on for the win. A feat that caused cheers not only from the crowd but from their competitors as well.

Our Speed Retrieve competition was equally as competitive with 22 teams making their way in our drag race for dogs. With many competitors using the new lighting system for the first time in speed retrieve, focus was high. With 12 teams hitting in the 6 and 7 second range, it was clear that no one wanted to back down from the honor of being fastest dog at “On The Waterfront”. The top 8 dogs came back for their final round with the cut off at an amazing 7.3 seconds. One after another each dog put up some great scores with the top 5 dogs being separated by just a few tenths of a second. The winner however had won by a strong two tenths of a second to secure victory. Lisa and Tractor, coming all the way from Las Vegas, NV, would win our Speed Retrieve and take home the gold.

The DockDogs Finals brought hundreds of people out surrounding the pool and dock. Dozens of chairs were filled by fans an hour before the start. With each handler figuring out their strategy for the event and giving some last minute words of encouragement to their dogs, the crowd swelled to more than it had been the entire weekend.

The Amateur Finals started the event off with high excitement going into our top four where each competitor was able to toss up some monster jumps giving pressure to their competitors. But in a class all their own, Jeff and Indy came away with the win with a gigantic 20′2″ jump that eclipsed all other amateurs. Second place went to Mike and Cooper, with Third going to Jerry and Ryea.

Semi-Pro dogs meant bigger and better high-flyin jumps, and the teams did not disappoint with Jody and Sheba edging out second place winner Scott and Ricochet and Third place winner Lee and Chopper. Though Jody and Sheba won, it was very close with all three top competitors coming in within 9 inches of each other.

And our Pro Finals brought the top five dogs out from the weekend to see who was top dog. Ranging in classes from Master to Super Elite, each dog received the cheers and admiration they deserved with each jump from the crowd. Cheers could not have been more gratifying as each jump brought us closer to our winner. Though valiant efforts were given by our third place winner Dan and Kody and our second place winner Dave and Jumpin’ George, it was no match for the one and only Super-Elite dog at the competition. Soaring above the heads of hundreds of people, Callie, with handler Ben, jumped their way to the win of our Pro Finals with a jump of 24′9″.

A special thank you to all “On The Waterfront” Staff and Competitors for their help throughout the weekend and coming out to what will be remembered as a busy, but exciting weekend of DockDogs.
DockDogs® is the independent governing and sanctioning body for regional, national and international dock jumping performance sports.

DockDogs® establishes the rules and standards of the sport, tracks results and records and supports and promotes the growth of its athletes, events, spectators, and sponsors.

Thought I’d give you all the latest update concerning the success of our dog training schools. We actually started putting out the Sit Means Sit Dog Training school locations about 2 1/2 years ago. We have put up 77 locations in that short a period of time, and has been a tremendous effort, and amazing word of mouth from all of our business owners clients to get those kind of numbers up. Steam has really been gathering this past year, and as of this writing, we have 37 new locations just since the first of the year. When getting into any business venture, be sure to do your research and your due diligence and to make comparisons of what the different dog training schools have to offer. Good luck in your decisions on your dog training career!

Well, it’s been about a year now since we came out with the Sit Means Sit dog training collar, and we couldn’t be happier with our results from our first year. Being selected as one of the best pet products for 2007 was certainly an honor. Having the capabilities of making changes on your own unit, and getting the feedback from our other Sit Means Sit location owners, a long with many of the professional dog trainers that have also been using the Sit Means Sit dog collar with their clients. I think the main reason that a lot of the other professionals have gone to it, is they have seen the tremendous advantages to having our lifetime warranty on the product, as it’s less for them to worry about. With summertime upon us very heavy, they love the fact that they can take the unit out to the lake or by the pool and not have to worry about something happening to either the remote or the receiver because it is a waterproof dog collar!

Here is an interesting Associated Press story concerning breed bans. Breed bans are very similar to racism. The video above shows a Pit bull that I used to have picking up all the trash in a park.

Dutch government to lift 25-year ban on pit bulls

The Dutch government says it will lift a long-standing ban on pit bulls because it did not lead to any decrease in bite incidents.

Agriculture Minister Gerda Verburg has informed parliament of the decision, which follows the advice of a commission of experts appointed to review the policy.

Instead, the country will focus on enforcing local leashing laws and owner education programs.

Spokesman Koen Geelink said Monday the ministry hopes to have a new policy in place by year-end, in which dogs that have displayed aggression will be tested by an expert.

The country banned the breeding and possession of pit bulls in 1993, after three children were killed by the dogs.

Click Here for another amazing well-behaved Pit Bull video!

I would like to congratulate Bob Campanile of our Sit Means Sit of Ocean County New Jersey. As you may know Bob is also a full time police K9 trainer/handler and just competed this past weekend in United States Police K9 Association Regional Police Dog Competition. 48 K9 teams competed and Bob finished number 1 high in trial with a score of 692 out of 700. Additionally, he finished 1st place in search work, 3rd place in obedience and 3rd place in protection. Bob’s department also won the 1st place 4 man team as well.

It was a lot of fun having the priviledge to be one of the corporate sponsors at the recent Rolex 3 day event horse show. This was the first really big horse event that I have been to in person. Everything was top notch there, and the animals were all amazing to watch. A friend of my wife’s family named Laine Ashker actually had a terrible fall at the event, and that was really a bummer. Laine actually came over and spent a good hour talking with everyone at our dinner table the night before the accident, and she was just the nicest and most humble person that anyone could possibly meet. She is a person in great shape, and I’m sure this will contribute to her recovering as quickly as someone possibly could from a fall like that. These people are tremendously courageous who ride and train for these types of events. Very dangerous sport. On the brighter side, I thought I would put a video up here of just some of the fun stuff that we did at our booth at the event. There were thousands of people there, and we hope to see a lot of them there again next year.

It was fun getting out to see our Denver school in action this past weekend, with everyone there having the students sharp as ever. It’s really satisfying to see people from all walks of life coming out of our schools, and really making an impact in their community with their dog training immediately. Dave Skoletsky, who runs our Denver school, has definetly been one of the biggest additions that we have made to our Sit Means Sit program over time with his addition to the SMS family, and with the great staff that he has as well. We also got all the staffs and students together and headed over to the Denver Pet Expo, and had a really good time over there meeting a lot of people. I could write forever in this dog training blog about what a good job that our schools do in producing trainers the way they do, but obviously the students that are coming through are also doing such a good job of taking the information and running with it. It’s a very satisfying business to be in.

It was a lot of fun this past weekend doing my very last seminar for the open public in Cleveland Ohio. After 10 years of constant travel, and getting to see a good part of this country and other places as well, and getting to work with literally thousands of dogs, it is time now to channel those energys more into all of our students that have been doing so well, and into the police world which we have seen the high demand for. I will be doing police seminars still, and am looking into having more time to do that now, a long with our upcoming police K9 school on remote training. This will also give me a bit more time for our video series, that we get a constant flow of requests for. We actually did get to recently release the very first video of that series, which is teaching dogs to swim and is available though our online store. I remember the very first seminar that I did quite a while back at Pam Green’s in Tucson Arizona, that had about 50 people there, and actually had a few people that went on to open Sit Means Sit dog training businesses years later. I remember a lot of people telling me that the general public would never accept remote dog training, but in actuality, I never really did have much problem once we got in front of the people and they got to see my dog, and I had the chance to do a demonstration with their dog as well. The general public never argued the results for the most part, and how much easier it made their lives for themselves and their dogs. I knew right from the beginning that it was going to develop into a very big thing with the help of others, and we are still in our infancy stages. I wanted to personally thank all of the people over the years that stopped by to see our program, and will still get to see it through all of our locations that I have a huge hand in personally developing. It was fun with the humane society’s, Veterinarian schools, remote collar companies, and many, many other groups that pretty much kept me busy for a good 40 weekends a year for a while. I have some very fond memories of all the upgrades that we made over the years.
I am very much looking forward to the future of spending the time developing not only the many locations that we have, but the many more that will come in the future, and the development of the police school. Many thanks to all!

Here is a video of my wife Lianne recently achieving a perfect score of 100 in a Rally competition. Dogs are different on any given day, and all you can do is to try to be as close to perfect on a daily basis, and do that as consistently as you can. Obviously, she is not going to get a perfect score the rest of the times out, but that is proof enough that even though there will be more training in the dog a year from now, everything has to go right on a given day.

This does not happen by accident though, and constantly showing your dog what you need it to do, and using whatever means you may have to have the dog’s attitude the best that he can be on a regular basis, always provides for not only a very good score, but a dog that looks good doing it. Judges also like to see very happy dogs, as does everyone in general. Great job by Lianne and Tank! The video tells it all!

We all recently had a great time with our dogs at the recent Groomers show in Kansas City, and it was a lot of fun speaking to all of the groomers there about our growing dog training business. The response was really fantastic from all of them, and I think that they spend a lot of time having to constantly take in unruly dogs and having to groom them, that we both understood each other very well. Of course it was great to get to see Tom and Carrie Mancuso again, along with J.B. from our Kansas City Dog training location, and to see their dogs. We look forward to the event again next year!!