At Purina Farms, Laurel Banky stood at the edge of the dock and watched her eight-year-old dog launch himself across 36 feet of open air, tying the world record he already owned. The crowd had barely settled from the championship being clinched when Sounders did it again, proving that a title defense and a world record on the same afternoon are not mutually exclusive. Dock diving, where dogs sprint down a platform and leap as far as possible into a long pool after a thrown lure, rewards exactly the combination of speed, focus, and raw athletic drive that Sounders has carried to five consecutive national championships.
A field where 32 feet puts you in fifth place
The depth of competition at this year’s National Championship Finals rewrote expectations before the first winner was announced. Lindsay Manetti and her dog Rogue opened with a 33-foot 5-inch jump, enough on most days to contend seriously. Slingshot and handler Rachel Brinkman cleared 32 feet in the first round, a mark so strong it still landed the pair in fifth place by the end of the day. The commentators noted it plainly: 32 feet in fifth place is, by historical standards, almost unheard of.
Russ Mlan, a paint technician for General Motors preparing to retire, brought his seven-year-old border collie whippet mix Rigs into the finals tied at the top with Sounders at 34 feet 4 inches after the first round. Geno McKenry and the four-year-old male whippet OG Kraken, Western Regional Champions out of Huntington Beach, pushed to 33 feet 7 inches in the final round to take a podium spot. The whippet breed, handlers noted, has quietly taken over the upper end of this sport, their powerful hindquarters generating the explosive takeoff speed that sends them flying past many of the Labrador Retrievers who once dominated the event. Penny Mayhem and Golden Eagle, Dallas-Fort Worth Central Regional Champions, opted for a disc as their lure rather than the standard bumper, finishing with a 32-foot 6-inch jump that drew one of the loudest crowd reactions of the afternoon.
The grandson watching from the dock
The subplot that had competitors and spectators tracking closely was a two-year-old dog named Incognito. He is Sounders’s grandson, handled by a young competitor named Sydney Mackey, and he improved by 3 full feet between his first and final rounds, finishing at 29 feet 6 inches. His technique still has room to grow: the commentators observed that he was not reaching the very edge of the dock at takeoff, and that extra distance is sitting there waiting for him.
Laurel Banky has watched this closely. ‘I fully expect to be beaten by one of those,’ she said, meaning Sounders’s own puppies and grandpuppies now competing in the sport. Mackey, for her part, captured the mindset that runs through competitive dock diving at every level: ‘Winning is great, but it’s really about the experience here. I just want him to have fun, be confident on the dock, and for us to bond more as a team.’
When Sounders finally took his victory-lap jump in the third round, Banky admitted she had arrived at the nationals simply hoping for a podium finish. ‘He turned eight in April and I just thought we’d be lucky to be on the podium this year,’ she said after the 36-foot jump landed. ‘Who gets this lucky with a dog this great?’
The pool at Purina Farms was extended to 50 feet this season specifically because jumpers like Sounders had begun to threaten the old boundaries.
Incognito at the edge of the dock
A two-year-old dog who will turn three in December, still learning to use every inch of the platform, already clearing nearly 30 feet on his best jump of the day.
Sounders won his fifth national championship with a best jump of 34 feet 11 inches in the second round, then went out and matched his own Incredible Dog Challenge world record of 36 feet on what was effectively a victory lap. The last time he hit that mark was in 2021, with no spectators present. This time, the crowd at Purina Farms was there for all of it.
