Local Dog to Participate in Cherry Festival's Ultimate Air Dog Event

This year's Ultimate Air Dog competition at the Cherry Festival will be even more fun to watch with local yellow lab, Lily, competing against some of the country’s best dock jumping dogs!!

The Ultimate Air Dogs are one of the premier dock jumping organizations in the country and put on professional events that draw in thousands of spectators while maintaining a family friendly atmosphere.

Lily, who turned 2 in January, was adopted from the rescue group, Petsafe Rescue Alliance after she was transferred there from Animal Control. Kathy and Dave Frost adopted her when she was 8 months old and Lily is their only dog. She does, however, share her house with two finches as well as her owners.

Watching the Ultimate Air Dogs at the Cherry Festival a few years ago got the Frost's thinking about Lily joining the sport. They realized from the beginning that Lily was an athlete. A little bit of a daredevil, she catches air in fields and jumps off little "cliffs" while running. She was entered in the Ultimate Air Dog Splash events in the summer of 2008 for the first time and won a first place in the Ultimate Air Dog’s Senior Level (not for seniors) with a jump of 22’4”. She loved it so much that she even evaded people at the end of her jump, got right back on the ramp and jumped again on her own volition and won great applause from the audience!

She has been jumping ever since last year's competitions and her best jump to date is 23'10" measured at the base of the tail. She gets practice by jumping off docks wherever one can be found and continues to be a strong competitor. She travels around the state for jumping events and has earned her UKC Championship in the Ultimate Level, participating in a number of events and now working toward her Grand Championship. She has several UAD (Ultimate Air Dogs) Ultimate Level Titles - ranking about15th out of 493 other dogs for distance jumping. 25.01 is the highest jump of all the dogs ranked.

Besides jumping, she also loves to retrieve things and looks very much like Peter Connontail in the field, bouncing around. She is very smart and loves her adoring fans. She exercises every day and looks forward to new challenges along with her owners.

Lily will compete on Thursday, July 9th and Friday, July 10th in the Splash events and quite possibly on Saturday at the finals! This event will once again be held at the Open Space in Traverse City. The first Spash is scheduled for 1:00 pm on Thursday with practice beginning at 11:00. Go to the ultimateairdogs.net for more information.