Purina Incredible Dog Challenge Winning Owner Dishes on Breaking the World Record

Jan 15th 2011

Jordan, a 3-year-old chocolate Labrador, was one of the biggest winners at the 13th annual Purina Incredible Dog Challenge when she broke the world record in dock diving even though she'd qualified for the event only the previous day.

The Journey to Qualify
Prior to the championship event in St. Louis, her owner, Sean McCarthy, hadn't been able to take Jordan to any of the official qualifying events, but he knew she had talent -- she'd been taking flying leaps into water since her first visit to the dog park as a puppy. He also knew she was a tough competitor, as evidenced by her strong finishes in a number of DockDogs events. Jordan was already the top-ranked dog in Speed Retrieve, in which dogs race against the clock to jump from the dock, retrieve an object and return. The dog had also placed fourth in 2008 in Big Air, which is basically the long jump, and took home another fourth place in 2009 in Iron Dog, which incorporates Speed Retrieve, Big Air and Extreme Vertical -- essentially a high jump for dogs -- at the DockDogs World Championship.

But to find out how well she could really do, McCarthy had to load Jordan in the car and drive from his home in Riverside, Iowa, crossing his fingers the whole way that they'd get to compete.

"I had heard that they had a 'last chance' qualifier the day before the National Championship," McCarthy tells us. He'd heard correctly, but it was on a first-come, first-served basis, so there was no guarantee Jordan would get a chance to jump. Also, she hadn't done so well in other recent competitions, so he wasn't optimistic about her performance.