I spent a weekend photographing different dog sports… here’s how it went!

In Reverse order due to Duck retrieving involving real ducks

Sunday - Dock Diving

20’ Dock Games!

On Sunday we got to photograph three different events. Congratulations to those who have earned their titles!

High Tide 20

this is when the Bumper is on a large boom and held at the approximate peak height of the jump. Participants must jump high and long to catch the Bumper that is suspended in the air. This event captures how far the participants can successfully catch the bumper from the dock.

Low Tide 20

this is when the Bumper is held at the end of the pool slightly above the water. Participants jump as far as they can, then swim to grab the bumper. This is a timed event on how quickly they can grab the bumper.

Tidal Wave 20

A person will throw the bumper into the pool and the dog must run, jump and retrieve the bumper. The event Measures the dog's distance jumping from the end of the dock to where the dog's base of the tail enters the water.

Saturday - Agility

The second sport we photographed that weekend was indoor agility!
I learnt that for dog sport photography, you should never use an external flash. The pop of light could distract or disorient the dog - potentially causing them to miss an obstacle and/or harm themselves.

This made photographing Mabel and Dipper quite difficult! Even though I mostly shoot natural light, it is important to know when to use your flash. Unfortunately, using a flash was out of the question. I still believe we got some great shots!

Warning to those sensitive to dead birds/animals

Friday - Duck Retrieving

On top of this being my first time photographing Duck Retrieving, there was some awesome milestones happened during this training session!

Banks is a 4 month black lab did his first full body duck land retrieval and his first water retrieval!

Rebel is a 1.5 year old wire-haired pointing griffon, it was her first water retrieval also!

We started our evening we land retrieval. The birds we had available was a Duck, a Snow Goose, a Pheasant and a Teal. Each dog we did some throws and some placed on the ground.

After a couple of hours we did some water retrievals. This brought a totally different vibe to the session. We did a couple of throws for the dogs and then put the golden lab to work. For Nye (the golden lab) we threw the birds deep into some swampy greenery for the perfect shot!

Note all birds were ethically sourced.

A dog sport weekend!