The Ultimate Air Dogs are soaring through Traverse City this week.
Local dogs and dogs from all over the country come to the National Cherry Festival to compete for which dog can jump the furthest.
Rochelle Carr is from Saginaw and brought her five dogs to participate.
“My biggest jumper is Bowzer. He’s a almost six year-old kettle dog border collie mix and his personal best is 19 feet,” said Carr.
Over the last five years, she’s taken her dogs all over to perform.
“I’ve gone to Missouri, Kansas, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin. We’ve pretty much traveled the metro Midwest,” says Carr.
She says her dogs have learned to love the spotlight as the crowd wait to see them take off.
“This is definitely the crowds,” Carr says. “I bring my dogs here, they love putting on for the crowds and it’s good exposure for the young ones to get used to doing it.”
On Thursday, they started the Ultimate Air Dog show by doing a memorial toss for Bill Johnston’s dog, Moses, who passed away.
“I had a big Chesapeake Bay Retriever and he loved to jump and swim and he was a water foul hunter,” says Johnston. “So I said what the heck, why not try him out in jumping?”
On Thursday, he celebrated Moses and his best jump.
“Twenty-three feet and six inches. He weighed 106 pounds. It’s like putting him to rest,” says Johnston.
He hopes to soon start training one of Moses’ cousins.
Bill and Rochelle tell us that they both plan to be here next year to make personal best jumps for their dogs.
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