Dive into the Canine Fitness Craze

Take your dog to Cross Creek Farm Canine Water Sports for a day of fun in the sun

In Clermont County, on a secluded 54 acre farm called Cross Creek, lays a competition size Dock Diving facility built by canine enthusiasts Ken and Linda Macke, owners of Cross Creek Farm Canine Water Sports. According to the Mackes, Dock Diving has become significantly more popular with dog owners looking to keep their dogs active while also bringing out their competitive streaks.

Though Dock Diving has been around since 1997, the sport has just recently gained recognition through Dock Diving competitions hosted by the infamous Ultimate Air Dogs, The ESPN Great Outdoor Games and the ever popular pet expo “Petropolis.” But what exactly is Dock Diving? Dock Diving most notably known as Dock Jumping is a dog sport where dogs compete in jumping for distance or height from a dock into a body of water. To encourage the dog to jump into the water the handler or dog owner throws a toy out into the body of water. The jump distance of the dog is then measured from the lateral midpoint of the end of the dock to where the base of the dog’s tail broke the water surface.

“I saw this years ago on TV, and when I did, I decided to take our two labs to dock diving classes,” recalls Linda. “My husband decided to build a competition size dock himself because there were none in the area at the time, but told me if he built one I would have to teach the dock diving classes!”

Cross Creek’s Dock Diving facility includes a 1 ¾ acre pond with a competition size dock that is fenced in and equipped with Astroturf. “We invested in this about four years ago and though I have noticed dog owners becoming a lot more interested in our facility we built this mainly to give back to the community. We are here to promote fun and healthy exercise for dogs,” stated Linda.

Ken and Linda hold classes on Wednesdays from 6-8p.m. the cost being $15 per dog. If an owner has multiple dogs every additional dog after the first is 50 percent off. Private lessons and practice sessions on the dock are available as well, private sessions being $25 per dog and practice sessions being $20 an hour per dog. “[Our mission] is for dog owners to have a safe and appropriate place to bring their dogs to practice dock diving,” Linda says. “It is a fun and healthy activity to share with your pet!”

Cross Creek Farm Canine Water Sports currently only offers dock diving, but Linda hopes to eventually teach classes in hunting, retrieving and tracking for canines. “In the future we hope to hold our own canine sporting competitions,” she adds. “We would also like to see the interest in the sport of dock diving grow so that we could offer more than one class a week.”

To learn more, visit www.crosscreekdogs.com call (513) 734-0004 or email them at info@crosscreekdogs.com.