Dancing Dog Earns Title of Boatyard Dog Champion
Sep 2007
By Holly Sherburne
2007 World Championship Boatyard Dog Trials
Five nervous dog-handler teams, hundreds of glistening boats in the bay and throngs of excited spectators gathered in Rockland Harbor could mean only one thing: the fifth annual World Championship Boatyard Dog Trials. This event has become a highly anticipated tradition of each August held on the final day of the Maine Boats, Homes and Harbor (MBHH) Show.
If you have yet to be a witness to this event, you will figure it out fairly quickly in the following—and you won’t want to miss it next year. It’s not “just another dog show.” In fact, the trials begin with the entrants parading around the grounds— most of them in costume—rallying support for their team. What is this competition, you ask? The Boatyard Dog Trials is the brainchild of the MBHH Show, designed to be “equal parts entertainment, silliness and good wet fun,” according to the website www.maineboats.com.
The trials are based on three simple principles:
1. Either dog or handler must finish the contest completely soaked;
2. Cheating is not only tolerated, but encouraged;
3. There are no further rules.
It’s this set of rules—or lack thereof—that keeps the audience guessing just what might happen
next. Unlike the Olympics, bribing the judges is not only commonplace, but it’s expected—one judge admits to being bribed with a chocolate éclair before the competition began.
This year’s Boatyard Dog Trials oasted five worthy canine teams, all competing for the title of world champion and the highly coveted Pup Cup.
Last year’s winner, the craterunning Soldado, a Culebrense from the island of Culebra in Puerto Rico, was back to defend her title. Her lobster crate racing antics wowed the crowd the year before and, by audience vote, earned her the title of champion beating out the runner up, Kylie the border collie.
But finishing second was not what Kylie and hander Michelle Davis had in mind. After last year’s disappointing loss in the hotly contested race, the pair returned this year with a repertoire of spins, leaps, weaves and jumps that they have worked on all year.
Joining the field this year were three new competitors: Poco the yellow Lab from Rockland, Shasta the self-described “brown dog” hailing from New Jersey and Cody and Kelvin, a pair of Chesapeake Bay retrievers, known as the “Chessie Boys” from Southwest Harbor.
Each team was required to complete three elements to demonstrate their skills in a boatyard. The first was a dockside obstacle course in which the dog and handler negotiated a maze of lobster traps, piles of rope and other assorted dockside paraphernalia. The dinghy hop requires both dog and handler to hop into and out of a very tippy dinghy tethered to a rope. The final element, freestyle, is the opportunity for each dog to shine and demonstrate his or her own special talents.
Shasta and her handler Michelle Boggs were first up in the competition. Shasta displayed a dizzying array of spins and ball catching moves. Most impressive was Shasta’s trick of convincing her handler to lie down and roll over on the wet dock, which earned laughter and a round of applause from the crowd. Next up was Poco, first mate on Morning in Maine, a windjammer out of Rockland. Wearing a University of Maine hockey jersey, Poco illustrated his goalkeeping skills while handler Capt. Bob Pratt attempted to shoot tennis balls by Poco into a lobster crate.
The competition continued with the Chessie Boys, a dynamic duo whose bio boasts extensive agility and obedience training. Their freestyle routine showcased a unique style of dance involved flying leaps, mad scrambles and splashing out of a boat in pursuit of bumpers. This routine earned high marks from the judges.
Kylie the border collie was a highly anticipated contestant. As last year’s runner up, the crowd waited to see the routine the dog hoped would earn her the championship. They were not disappointed. Kylie and Davis put on a crowd-pleasing show of spins, jumps, toe taps and a conga dance—all to the music of the Beach Boys’ “Surfin’ USA.” The performance was enough to tie them for first place with the Chesapeake Bay retrievers.
Returning champion Soldado was the final contestant of the day and once again, she displayed her amazing ability to run the crates. But even that, combined with handler Captain Chaos fulfilling the obligatory “finish the contest completely soaked” rule, was not enough to retain her title for a second year.
The competition had come down to a freestyle run-off between Kylie and the Chessie Boys. After a final showing of Chessie water ballet and dancing to the Beach Boys, the results were left up to the crowd—and the applause-o-meter declared Kylie the 2007 World Champion
Boatyard Dog.