‘Superdog’ makes splash with ‘celebrities’

By Brendan Buhler

Monday, Feb. 4, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Let’s get this out of the way early: The celebrity challenge dog dock diving event Saturday outside the Las Vegas Convention Center was, in several important ways, a fraud.

First, the celebrities were not the dogs but their human handlers. Second, the celebrities weren’t the type of celebrities that you’ve heard of or could recognize. And third, they weren’t the celebrities’ dogs.

For instance, the afternoon’s winning dog, a 3 1/2-year-old black and white border collie named Nevada, does not belong to Michael Bane, the man throwing the rubber duck, holding her up in the air, yelling “Go, go, go!” and letting her loose to sprint down the 40-foot dock and leap 20 feet into the air and land nose first in the pool. Nevada actually belongs to Shari Robinson of Panorama City, Calif., who hadn’t met Bane before and isn’t sure what it is he is famous for.

Bane, like all the other celebrities, is a celebrity because he hosts a show on the Outdoor Channel, which is sponsoring the event. Also there are the world’s last Olympic gold medalist in women’s double-trap skeet shooting, which by the way is no longer an Olympic sport; a show host who got his start on the turkey-calling circuit; a husband-and-wife team; and Rich “Tequila” Young, a cowboy action shooter wearing rubber boots, striped pants, a leather vest and a large hat.

Saturday’s dock dog events were the first of four days’ worth of six-dog heats that will culminate Tuesday when the winners face off to see which goes on to the nationals. (The celebrity challenge doesn’t count.) And though some dog events across the country are held at lakes and ponds, this is Las Vegas.

It’s taking place in a parking lot, with the border collies, Labrador retrievers, mutts and the odd rottweiler racing down a platform and leaping into the air, where their jump is measured by a camera attached to a pole and connected to a computer. At least that’s how it’s supposed to work. Sometimes dogs will do what Starbuck, a brown Lab, did, which is skid to a halt at the end, stare at the water, jump gingerly onto exit ramp adjacent to the runway and wade into the pool and swim leisurely to the toy.

But when the dogs do jump, they often come down with a thumping splash that drenches unwary or highly dedicated photographers at the pool’s edge.

Nevada won an early heat with a leap of 22 feet, 4 inches, and won the celebrity challenge with 20 feet, 3 inches.

Robinson and Nevada (born in Sparks, hence the name), have been at this since Robinson brought Nevada up here to the same dock diving competition at the 2006 SHOT Show, a convention for the hunting and shooting industry. As dog sports go, dock diving requires little training, because all it asks is that the dogs take a running leap into a pool of water and retrieve a toy. Nevada doesn’t practice in between contests because she gets all her training at dock diving competitions. She goes to a lot of those — more than 20 plane rides in the past two years — and has earned a nickname on the circuit.

“They call her ‘Superdog,’” Robinson says, “because she’s been known to wear costumes.”

But today, Nevada is wearing only a bright pink vest advertising a sponsor for the event. It doesn’t seem to keep the sopping wet, whippet-bodied dog warm in 50-degree air, though. She stares with accusing eyes at the humans and shakes like a Chihuahua in a meat locker.

“Oh that?” She’s not cold,” Robinson says. “She just wants to go do it again. Watch — Water, Nevada? Huh, water?”

The dog stops shaking and raises her ears.

Besides Nevada, there are a lot of dogs here that actually live in Nevada.

For instance, there is Queue, a 2-year-old, red and white border collie that belongs to Wendy Jensen of Centennial Hills. Queue has a bark that could break wine glasses and energy to burn, which is why Jensen runs him in a sport called fly ball and, Saturday, dock diving. Queue leaps high into the air and lands back-paws first in the water, looking for an instant like a dog walking on water.

Queue doesn’t have the distance to win, but Jensen says “it’s a good outlet for dogs like him that bark a lot and need constant exercise.”

Brendan Buhler can be reached at 259-8817 or at [email protected].