Hope's new teacher?

Well, this isn't really about Hope, but about some friends who can teach her to jump - maybe? Mason is a COC (change of career) CCI dog whose new career is being a beloved pet dog, companion, therapy dog, and now dock diving dog with his puppy raiser.  I became friends with Mason's puppy raiser when I had Rolie, my 2nd CCI puppy who is now a service dog.  It was because of Mason that I became involved with HOPE AACR with Hope.  

His newest job is that of dock diving competitor, he has taken some lessons and will be competing for the first time in a few weeks. I loaded up my kayak so we could get some pictures and videos of Mason diving off the dock from the water at Lake Natoma's Negro Bar area.  I tried to not drift off too far in the kayak and take videos and pictures at the same time, and not drop either camera or get it wet, not so easy (I did have a dry bag!).  Luckily, it wasn't too windy out there today so we picked a good day to go out (for my sake anyways!). 

It was so funny as we almost didn't get to do any jumping.  When we first got there, Mason dropped his toy and it rolled under the dock and got stuck in a gap beneath the dock, along with a bunch of other wayward tennis balls.  We tried to use my paddle to get it out but it wasn't working, then some guy comes over with his huge fishing net and asks if we wanted to use it. It worked! Phew...

Here are a few videos and a slideshow of the photos I took today...we had a great time watching Mason show us his stuff!  In the first video, you can kind of see the yellow stick dog toy that is being tossed in the water to get Mason to jump off the dock.

These are the videos I took from my kayak...

Maybe Mason can teach Hope a thing or two, huh? She also got an offer from her new friend Maggie, who has also competed in a dock diving competition too.