Rachael and Dan Brinkman are the dock’s owner/trainers with many years of experience training dogs for many different training disciplines. They’ve has trained their dogs for various competitive sports including obedience, rally, whippet racing, flyball, frisbee, and dock diving. Rachael has been training for nearly 40 years, stemming from parents that were active in dog training and competition.
Rachael and Dan have several dogs that actively compete in multiple dog sports. They compete at World Championship levels in several different sports with their dogs. Their dogs have set 19 world records in 4 different dock diving organizations, one which landed them into Guiness World Records in 2019! They have taken podium with multiple dogs in every dock diving discipline, in every organization’s championship they’ve ever attended.
They started a dock diving club in Michigan in 2016, and opened their own in 2018. Since then they’ve offered private lessons, seminars, competitions, and more learning opportunities for the community.
Mika Sumner is one of Einstein Dog Training’s behavior modification trainers, but she also has an extensive background in dock diving! Mika was first introduced (hooked) to dock diving over 6 years ago when she was trying to find something to do with her ball driven golden retriever mix that enjoyed swimming. About 1 year later Mika obtained her first official sport bred dog, a Belgian Malinois named Angus that took to dock diving naturally. At that point she needed to learn more about the fundamentals of the sport, breaking the pieces down to gain more speed, height, and distance. The team spent a lot of time at her home dock in Valley Center, CA where she learned quickly and started teaching dock diving lessons with her mentor Lise Strum and her husband. At that time she also worked at Tsavos’s Canine Rehabilitation where she was a hydrotherapist, teaching injured dogs to walk in the underwater treadmill. Often these dogs hated or were afraid of water, so through confidence building, treats and play, these dogs were any to enjoy their time in the water. Mika and Angus have competed in various dock diving venues, earning advanced titles and competing in regional and national competitions. Mika is excited to spend her summer having a little extra fun in the sun, helping beginner dogs in group classes and private lessons.
Riley is Einstein Dock Diving’s dock diving trainer with years and experience in dog sports. Riley is currently a student in the University of Michigan Doctorate of Physical Therapy program. When she’s not busy with school, she enjoys doing dogs sports with her dog Lu. She is a border collie x staffy mix, and their main sport has always been flyball. She has played the sport since she was 8 years old! Beside flyball, Lu and Riley have also competed in dock diving and disc. They placed 2nd in the lap dog division at a dock competition in 2018. Riley has years of experience working with high drive dogs, working in different sports to motivate, channel drive, and get the most out of their performance, She loves seeing how much joy being active and playing different sports brings the dogs. She’s very excited to start teaching others how fun dock diving is this summer!