Ocean City is Going to the Dogs

The Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art will be hosting the world-famous DockDogs®, featuring dock diving and distance jumping canine performances and competition in a huge 40-foot pool, in conjunction with the 42nd annual Ward World Championship Wildfowl Carving Competition and Art Festival at the Roland E. Powell Convention Center in Ocean City, MD, April 27-29.The Big Air competition features dogs running down a 40’ dock and diving into a pool of water after an object, in which they are electronically judged for the length of their jump. The Extreme Vertical competition is a “High Jump” for the dogs as they each lunge to snag a “bumper” suspended in the air. With each grab, the height increases in 2-inch increments until only one dog is crowned king. Rounding out the action is the newest form of competition known as Speed Retrieve – where the dogs are put on the clock to see how fast they can run down the dock, jump into the water, swim to the end of the pool and retrieve an object which is held by a modified extender arm.