Dogs just wanna have fun, Oh Dogs just wanna have fun…….

Part of the joy of having a dog is just watching them have a good time. No matter if it is a roll on the carpet or a romp in the yard, watching them have fun is just fun. I have dogs because I like spending time with them, I like interacting with them and having fun with them so we are always trying to find new and interesting activities for fun.

One the the new activities we are having fun with is the sport of Barn Hunting. If you haven’t seen or heard of it you can check the rules at www.barnhunt.com but here is what we have learned in a nutshell:

It makes sense to most dogs so it is a fun activity. The hardest part is staying out of your the dogs way while they are doing what they naturally know how to do. In other words the handler doesn’t have a big role to play.

Any dog can partcipate, the only restriction would be if you have a Very VERY large dog who could not navigate the tunnels it might be an issue.

Dogs have fun!

For novice runs each dog has 2 minutes to find a live rat hidden in a special PVC tube. The tube is hidden somewhere in the straw bale either on the ground or one bale high. In addition to the tube with the rat there are also 2 additional tubes hidden, one with rat bedding or litter and one that is clean. This is to make sure the dog is hunting a rat and not just the tube. In addition to finding the rat the dog has to complete a climb (jumping or climbing up on a bale) and has to go through the tunnel made of bales. As the levels go up so does the difficulty and the number of rats/tubes involved. We aren’t there yet but we are learning.

I took this short video with my GoPro Camera of Lindy (Ch Arylan Flying Start) doing her 1st ever barn hunt run. As you can see she found the rat with no problem.