It all began when world-renowned adventurer, climber and base jumper Dean Potter would hike with his pet dog Whisper, a mini Australian cattle dog.
After hours of hiking and base-jumping alone, Potter said he would return home and take Whisper for another walk, which became exhausting. Eventually, he decided to bring Whisper with him.
"It was like six or seven hours of hiking every day. I was like, “This is crazy, I’m getting run ragged. I’ve got to figure out a way to take Whisper with me." he told OUTSIDE magazine.
Potter said he made a special wingsuit for Whisper and practiced carrying sandbags on his back during jumps before he officially took the leap with his pet dog.
"Whisper’s entire life, she’s done what I’ve done. We wingsuit, BASE jump quite a bit, but only on the safest jumps," he said. "I don’t take her on any super advanced, death-defying jumps. I’m also into paragliding, so Whisper goes paragliding very often."
The daredevil recently released a short documentary film about their adventures called When Dogs Fly.
He screened the film's trailer at Mountainfilm festival in Telluride, US, in 2014. But not everyone was happy he was endangering Whisper's life.
"The way I see it, a dog is not a toy. A dog is not a teddy bear. A dog is not a character from a movie," Gawker's Jesus Diaz wrote when he first saw the trailer in 2014.
"A dog is an animal who can't understand what's going on most of the time and, still, they trust us with every fiber of their beings... I'm not amused."
Potter agreed that it's a dangerous risk to take, but believes Whisper enjoys base-jumping.
"Whisper chooses to do everything she does. And there are some things Whisper will not do. We found out very early on that Whisper hates to ride in helicopters.
"But when I pick up my BASE pack, and say, 'Hey Whisper, let’s go for a hike, let’s go BASE jumping,' she’s right at my heels. She knows what the pack means – she’s been in that pack now close to a hundred times... through her body language asking to come along."
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