Diving dogs fly into competition at Mt. Pleasant indoor pool

Inside the spacious former L.E. Smith Glass Co. warehouse in Mt. Pleasant, the sound of barking dogs filled the air Friday as a variety of breeds jumped into a 45-foot-long pool of water, trying to catch a 6-inch yellow rubber “stick” that their owners tossed to get them to spring forward as far as possible.

“It’s something to do to bond with your dog,” said Megan Kukla, who was with her mother, Denise Siefers of Plum, in their first competition for Cush, the family’s 20-month-old black Labrador retriever.

The owners and their faithful companions were competing in the North American Diving Dogs contest at the Rustic Lodge Diving Dogs Center. A judge sat poolside, logging how far each dog had jumped, marking the point where its hindquarters hit the water.

Cush will be joined by about 110 dogs this weekend who will complete more than 500 jumps into the pool, said Ally Strother, owner of Rustic Lodge Diving Dogs. They perform distance jumps and air retrieving — pulling a “bumper” hanging from metal poles starting at about 18 feet from the ramp.

The weekend’s competition attracted longtime diving dogs and those just entering what Strother called “a growing sport.” The event is so popular it attracted dog owners from around Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland and New York to jump in the indoor pool, the only one like it in the Northeast, according to Strother.

“We’re here to learn how to do it. There is no pressure,” Kukla said, with Cush at her side.

There is an art to correctly tossing the rubber “stick” into the water, making sure it’s out far enough, but not so high that the dog loses sight of it, Kukla said.

The dogs get a running start on a wooden platform at one end of the pool, then aggressively leap off the ramp into the 4½-foot-deep water.

“You have to toss it right before you get bit,” Kukla said with a straight face.

While winners in different size classes of dogs will get ribbons in their particular category, Strother said some dog owners also are practicing for the National North American Diving Dog championship on Halloween weekend in Springfield, Mo.

One of those heading to the national competition is Matt Krinock of Latrobe, a judge at Mt. Pleasant competition. He will be taking his golden retriever, Sam, who started jumping off a dock into a pond about two years ago.

“He loved it,” Krinock said.

Fred and Kim Evans came from Slippery Rock and saw their English labrador retriever jump her personal best of 21 feet, 3 inches.

“We took him to Lake Arthur and he loved it,” Fred Evans said of their dog jumping into the lake at Moraine State Park in Butler County.

Stan Tissue came all the way from Keedysville, Md., near the Civil War battlefield of Antietam, to bring his flat-coated retriever to the competition.

The dog is a good enough jumper, Tissue said, that he has received invitations to national competition.

“This is a great place,” Tissue said of the indoor pool. It’s a place for the dog ‘to let it go.’”