"When Dogs Fly"
Star
Tribune: Newspaper of the Twin Cities
June 1, 2001
The rookie challenger trains twice a day, receptive to a demanding routine that requires road work at dawn and precision drills at dusk but oblivious to the ultimate tasks at hand. Tucker doesn't know that next month he will face the champ, a record-setting blend of explosive athleticism and killer instinct named Heidi. Nor does he know that he - and cable television executives - are redefining in a small way the definition of American sport.
All Tucker wants is to get the bird. In July, Tucker - a 75-pound, 5-year-old black lab - will bound off a fishing dock and leap into an upstate New York lake and straight into the Great Outdoor Games, a made-for-ESPN event that's an eclectic mix of fishing contests, sporting-dog competitions and target and timber sports.
Tucker's event is Sporting Dogs Big Air, a doggie long jump that draws hundreds of lakeside spectators and stops television channel surfers in their tracks because of its novelty and simplicity: One dog, one dock, one decoy. And one big splash of water.
"Everyone loves dogs and there's nothing complex about the scoring," said Great Outdoor Games sports and competition manager Cadence Harkins, "so it really appeals to everybody."
The dog that jumps farthest, as determined by laser sighting, wins. That is why Tucker's handler and owner, a fellow from Prior Lake named Tom Dropik, is out most every morning running his dog up steep hills and on a fishing dock at Prior Lake most every evening with an 18-foot aluminum roof rake, a bent metal coat hangar, a pair of binder clips and an 10-inch piece of foam covered in canvas.
The foam is the bird, and all it takes for Tucker to launch himself down the dock and as much as 20 feet into the water is the simple command, "Get the bird, Tucker, get the bird."
That instinct is the reason Dropik, 40, a computer director for an Eagan freight delivery company, hunts duck and pheasant in fall and the reason he and his girlfriend, Janeil Shambour, blew off their postseason bowling banquet and drove 15 hours in his pickup truck to Little Rock, Ark., to give Tucker a chance to qualify for the Great Outdoor Games. It's also why Dropik, Shambour, Tucker and Shambour's dog, a tiny Shih Tzu named Bailey, will pile into the pickup and drive to Lake Placid, N.Y., in July.
Tucker's desire for the bird and his leaping ability will put him and his owner on television Saturday when ESPN2 shows the sporting dogs qualifier from 3 to 5 p.m. Those qualities also will earn the two $250 just for competing and give them the chance to win $3,700 should Tucker upset last year's champion, the aforementioned Heidi, and win first place. Heidi, who jumped 22 feet last year, is the favorite to win again this year.
"I just love watching the dog perform," Dropik said. "That's why I hunt. That's what he was put on this world to do. He has the athleticism and the spirit to do it, so why not get the most out of him?"
Dropik, 6-6 and a former national-caliber downhill skier, knew he had an athlete when Tucker, little more than a puppy, would jump eight feet in the air to pluck an apple out of his hand in his backyard orchard. He then started taking Tucker to the Anoka Game Fair, where he almost instantly became a jumping star. Tucker jumped 18 feet at the Arkansas contest and finished fourth, one place out of the automatically qualifying, but was invited anyway.
Never mind that Dropik's friends and family members look at him cockeyed when he tells of their cross-country adventures just so Tucker can go dog diving. "He asks me if he's crazy for doing all this," Shambour said, "and I tell him, `No, you just love your dog.' "
Tucker will earn a payday in Lake Placid and he has a sponsor, Dropik's employee, Manna Transit Systems. Does he also do interviews?
"If you came to Tom's house at night and watched them have a conversation together, you'd think he did," Shambour said.