Posted: December 4, 2008, 5 a.m. EST
Westminster, it’s not. But if you enjoy watching top canine athletes bounding off docks, catching flying discs, and retrieving in record time, check out the “STIHL Dogs & Logs World Championships” Thursday, Dec. 4, on the Outdoor Channel.
The competition, which drew 50 of the world’s best dogs in disciplines like Big Air, Extreme Vertical, and a brand-new discipline called Speed Retrieve, attracted more than 200,000 people to its July event, held in Stillwater, Minn., during Lumberjacks Days, an annual summertime event and logging championship.
“It doesn’t get any better than that,” says Tom Dropik, an analyst for the Outdoor Channel’s “Dock Dogs Unleashed,” and a competitor at Dogs & Logs with his black Labrador Retriever Rocky. “I’ve competed in five Great Outdoor Games in venues like beautiful Mirror Lake in the Adirondack Mountains in New York [and] in front of huge crowds in the desert of Reno, Nevada. I thought I’d never experience anything like those events again until Stillwater. It was the perfect event in the perfect setting with a top-notch field of competitors.”
“STIHL Dogs & Logs World Championships” airs tonight on the Outdoor Channel at 5 p.m. EST.