Mountain Home dog jumps for gold

Life sure has gone to the dogs for Matthew McCluskey and his wife, Krystle. They are the owners of Pepper, a three-year-old Catahoula Leopard dog, who has earned top honors as both a dock jumper and vertical leaper.

McCluskey, who has lived in Mountain Home since 2002, has raised Pepper since he was eight weeks old.

Pepper got his start in an unusual manner, when McCluskey was visiting his father in Spokane. When McCluskey's father started to play fetch with Pepper, McCluskey threw the ball up in the air, and Pepper decided to pick the ball out of the air, but in doing that he cracked his head on the eight-foot ceiling.

Oddly enough, that gave McCluskey the inspiration to enroll Pepper in their first competition, the Big Horn Outdoors Show in Spokane, and in Pepper's first competition he took home the gold.

Pepper now competes in two events, the Big Air (dock jumping) and the Vertical (where dogs jump to grab a bumper hanging 16 feet in the air).

The training methods for Pepper don't include edible treats. According to McCluskey, if a dog gets an edible treat while learning dock jumping, they don't know to jump farther, and think they are awarded for just hitting the water. For Pepper, his treat is a green squeaky football that McCluskey uses while training Pepper.

McCluskey has brought Pepper to competitions for both the Dock Dogs and Splash Dogs, two separate organizations that promote dock jumping.

In his first ever jump at the 2008 Western Idaho Dock Jumping Championship, Pepper outlasted a field of 100 dogs with a jump of 23 feet, four inches. His best jump prior to that was 19 feet, three inches. Later in the competition, Pepper topped his first jump with a new personal best of 25 feet, six inches and later won the competition with a jump of 25 feet. In the Vertical competition, Pepper won the event with a leap of seven feet two inches. The world record for the event is seven feet six inches.

Overall, Pepper has won two gold medals (at a event in Spokane, Wash.) and one silver medal (at a event in Puyallup, Wash.) as a member of the Dock Dogs in 2007, and three first place and one second place ribbon as a member of the Splash Dogs in 2008.

Following Pepper's accomplishments, Pepper became ranked nationally on the Splash Dogs web site, www.splashdogs.com, Pepper is ranked fifth in the nation with an average dock jump of 24 feet and second in the nation for Vertical. The Splash Dogs will sponsor Pepper as he, along with 200 other dogs, compete in the 2008 Splash Dogs Dock Jumping Competition at the Cynosport World Games in Scottsdale, Ariz., from Oct. 29 to Nov. 1.

"I'm very proud of him, he's a great dog. He just loves to go out there and do it and Pepper is good at what he does. His training came very easy and his concentration is just insane," said Matthew McCluskey.

"He's an awesome dog, I can't believe he has taken it this far. I've seen him from when he was a puppy to now, and he's like my kid, so I am just so proud of him," said Krystle McCluskey.