Lawson leaps to victory: Local dog wins at DockDogs world championships

ST. PAULS — When they adopted Lawson into their family, Allison and Josh Stedman hoped to have a “lazy dog.”

But that would not be the case, Lawson’s actions quickly told them. Instead, they might just have one of the most active dogs anywhere.

After competing throughout the year in DockDogs events designed to test Lawson’s speed and jumping ability, the 2-year-old black lab recently won an event at the DockDogs World Championships in Dubuque, Iowa.

“I’ve never really been into sports, that wasn’t my thing, that wasn’t my husband’s thing, so to have a dog that’s into sports, it’s been a lot of weekends and a lot of road time,” Allison Stedman said. “But he has a room in our house, and to see his wall with all his ribbons and medals and trophies that he’s got, and just the sheer amount of time, it’s pretty rewarding.”

The Stedmans, who live in St. Pauls, decided to get Lawson involved in DockDogs as an outlet for the high-energy animal.

“We have another lab that’s lazy, and we wanted another lazy dog, but we got a high-energy dog; we had to adjust our life to him,” Allison Stedman said. “He just always wanted to play, and then we have a fence in our backyard, and he started jumping the fence, so we noticed how high he was jumping. Then we started throwing balls and throwing toys, and he just wanted to jump; he barely cared to run far distances, he just wanted to jump and get air time.”

Through talking to others about their dogs, the Stedmans heard about Indian Creek K-9 Aquatics in Goldston, just northwest of Sanford, and decided to start taking Lawson there to work with trainer Jay Harris and see how he would like it.

“He loves it. It’s his day, and that’s his favorite place to go, he loves Jay, our trainer,” Allison Stedman said. “When we get about two minutes from there, he starts crying and barking, because he knows that’s where he’s going. It started because he was such a high-energy dog, and we had to do something to deal with all his energy, because he was tearing up the house.”

Lawson first competed in a DockDogs event in February at the SEWE (Southeastern Wildlife Exposition) event in Charleston, South Carolina, and continued competing throughout the year, performing strongly enough to earn an invitation to the world championships.

DockDogs holds three events: big air, which the organization’s website describes as long jump for dogs; extreme vertical, which is similar to high jump; and speed retrieve, which is a timed event in a pool. Lawson competes in the IronDog competition, in which the dog performs all three disciplines to earn points towards an overall total.

Lawson won the IronDog event in the Titan division, which is the second-highest level of competition. He scored exactly 20 feet in big air, 6 feet, 4 inches in the extreme vertical and swam the 40-foot course for speed retreive in 6.53 seconds.

This was the culmination of lots of training for Lawson; Allison says she does training exercises with the dog about four or five times per week, for 20 to 30 minutes a session, and they go to train with Harris at Indian Creek K-9 Aquatics about every two weeks.

“We pretty much train to get him to swim faster, jump higher and jump further,” Allison Stedman said.

This story is made even more remarkable by the fact Allison is currently pregnant, with the Stedmans expecting a baby girl in mid-February. She was 22 weeks pregnant at the time of the world championships, which turned a normally 16-hour drive to Iowa into an 18 1/2-hour drive as doctors recommended she not ride for long periods without breaks.

“It hasn’t been a big challenge until Iowa, where we went to worlds. She started moving and kicking a lot,” Allison Stedman said. “This is my first pregnancy, so I’m not as big as they say you get with your second and your third. This last weekend, it was a little bit of a challenge adjusting to throwing around my stomach, when I’ve got a toy.”

Allison wants to take Lawson back to the SEWE event, where he first competed earlier this year — but that event happens to fall at the same time as her due date.

“I want her to be healthy, but I want her to be born early, so we can go and be there at his first event that he ever did again, and get to jump one more time,” Allison Stedman said. “But if not, we’ll be there the next year.”

Lawson is about to enter what is considered the peak age for competitive dogs, from 3 to 5 years old, when they can jump the longest and fastest. There are, however, DockDogs competitions for “seniors” and “veterans,” and the oldest dog Allison has seen at a competition was 14 years old, so the possibility exists for Lawson to continue to compete for several years into the future.

“We’re going to jump as long as he wants to and as long as he can,” Allison Stedman said. “He takes supplements now to keep his medicals up, and he eats high-protein dog food and all that good stuff.”

If Lawson’s lifestyle is any indication, he’s going to want to keep jumping for quite a while.