Dog raised by Goliad breeder is top finisher in diving competition

For years, Krystin Johansen-Weishiemer has had a passion for raising dogs, which she inherited from her mother, but when raising as a pup Lord Queso Von Taco, one of the many Boston Terriers she trains and raises, there was something special about him.

Fast forward a few years later, Lord Queso and his owner, Ashley Peterson, 39, of The Woodlands, are finishing as a finalist in the first two inaugural Dock Diving competitions at the Westminster Dog Show back-to-back years.

Overall, Lord Queso has won 20 titles in the American Kennel Club and National Association of Dog Diving during his life, Johansen-Weishiemer, 37, of Goliad, said. The two have kept in touch and maintained their bond through the training of the dog.

Johansen-Weishiemer grew up around dogs her entire life, with her mother raising them. However, she became a breeder after college when she got injured playing college sports.

“I basically had to find my niche in something that made me happy, and in a roundabout kind of fateful way, I ended up breeding Boston Terriers,” she said.

Since 2009, Johansen-Weishiemer has been training her dogs for confirmation showing, or what people traditionally see when they turn on the Westminster Dog Show, she said. In her backyard in Goliad, around 2018, Lord Queso Von Taco was among them.

“From the moment he was born here, there was something about him that was different,” Johansen-Weishiemer said. “He resembled my boy Primo from years ago, who was my soulmate dog that I started all my showing with.”

Peterson was looking for a girl at the time, but Johansen-Weishiemer made the recommendation because of that connection and Lord Queso’s relationship to Primo, she said.

The dog started confirmation showing in 2019 after training with both Johansen-Weishiemer and Peterson.

However, Peterson and Johansen-Weishiemer found something they and the dog enjoyed in dock diving competitions, a space where both owner and animal compete based on firm measurements rather than subjective scoring.

“As he got older, he had a drive, a drive to basically please, very eager to please. He loved his mom, Ashley, so much that he would do anything to make her happy,” she said.

Lord Queso is a nationally ranked master lap division dog and was one of 100 dogs invited to Westminster’s dock diving competition twice.

“It’s a challenging sport for both owner and dog,” Johansen-Weishiemer said. “Dogs see differently than humans do. From the angle of the pool and where it’s starting, there is a lot of trust between owner and animal on top of them having an inherent drive and enjoying the water.”

This year, as a finalist, Lord Queso finished in the top 10, and while results beyond the top four weren’t announced, it is believed, based on the jumps, that Lord Queso finished fifth, Peterson said.

For dock diving, much of the training has been handled by Peterson with the three different dock diving activities of air retrieve, where the dog has to knock a toy down that is hanging above the water; distance jumping, where the dog jumps and retrieves a toy; and hydro dash, where the dog jumps into the water and swims to the end.

In the next competition Lord Queso will be participating in, he won’t be alone, Peterson said. Lord Queso will be competing in 2024 Memorial Day Qualifier at K9 Coastal Sports in Aransas Pass for fun, as he has already qualified for the regional competition with his puppy El Frito Taquito competing alongside him in his second ever competition.

“He’s a once in a lifetime type of dog,” Peterson said. “We just really love taking part in the competitions.”