Jeff Rabidoux of Empire leads the gathering of the second largest group of golden retrievers “Midwest Golden Fest” Sept. 13-15 at the Turtle Creek campground in Beulah.
Over 200 Golden retrievers have descended on the lake and beach park.
“It’s such an amazing event to see so many different shades of golden retriever all hanging out together,” Rabidoux said.
People as far as Kentucky and New York travel, attending the event as Rabidoux expects nearly 250 different shades of golden retriever at this year.
The first day consists of potlucks, Saturday is a full day of contests including best diving, best trick, longest distance traveled with doggy prizes for the winners..
“It’s just a day full of humans having a good time and dogs having a great time,” he said.
Rabidoux sells real estate at Crystal Mountain Resort and Blu is the resort ambassador down there. He works at the lobby greeting people who check into the resort.
Rabidoux lives on Fisher Lake and Blu started his jumping adventures off the 400-foot dock at home, which happens to be the length of a competitive diving dock.
Rabidoux admits that Blu’s skill is purely natural and doesn’t have any training skills. One of the challenges for Blu to overcome if he wants to score big at the Ultimate Air Dog during Polka Fest is jumping off the very edge instead of a foot and a half before the end of a dock.
The competition measures the distance based from where the base of the tail hits the water. Ideally, Rabidoux explains, your dog needs to leave at the very edge of the dock and maximize the distance over the water to be successful. Blue is still chasing his personal best when he was 1-years-old.
“I have been working with him at home as we near the second competition by adjusting the distance that he runs into the jump, hoping to hit his stride,” he said. “The perfect distance where it’ll be close to the end of the dock. So instead of letting him run 40 ft., I let him run about 38 ft. and hope that his stride hits a little bit closer.”
Blu will go to the end of the dock and be placed in a sitting position.
“I’ll go to the end of the dock and I’ll encourage the crowd to scream because the louder they are, the more fired up he is to jump,” Rabidoux said.
