Me thinks the Border Collies would have enjoyed it more than Trouble. Wayne and I were "spot on" when we both remarked to each other…."Trouble is too SMART for a barn hunt." How could a "ratter by breed" not want to enjoy a barn hunt?
Silly….because it wasn't REAL! Trouble is smarter than all of our Border Collies put together. Trouble is already a "master" hunter/ratter. She could care less about a rat in a cage or a tube. She did show a little interest in a rat without a cage. But, she rolled her eyes in that the rat didn't move. It appeared to be still from heat exhaustion (just like the rest of us). The barn was probably about 100 degrees inside of it. Ugh.
"Yep, that's a rat and he is in a cage."
Now, Keira, Troubie's larger buddy. is a tracking dog and she was very interested in a caged rat.
There really isn't too much to the barn hunt. A rat is placed in a tube with air holes. Other containers may be placed nearby that don't contain a rat. The dog needs to find the container with the rat. The handler needs to be aware of the dog's signal. In this case, keira lifted her lip a bit and pointed to the container with the rat. Then, the handler says, RAT." Game over.
They can hide the containers over and under the hay bales and as you work up to higher levels you may have up to 5 containers hidden. There may be only one or more rats in the 5 containers. The dog needs to signal which containers have a rat in them. We tried fooling keira by switching the container with the rat and the empty container. We didn't fool her a bit. :0)
They tried to get Trouble excited over a rat out of a container. Yep, that's a rat she is thinking. Let it go. Nope, it ain't moving. I only chase prey that is on the run.
Keira wins. Game over. Let's go home. hahaha Pretty uneventful.
4 comments:
Hmmm, the pictures I've seen here of barn hunt involves many more hay bales than that. That looks boring even to me.
Ooh, and that rat, I am soooo not a rat person, and that rat is just gross:(
I can just imagine what Trouble told the BCs when she got home! Ha
She probably told the Border Collies about all of the cookies Melodie gave her while she was visiting! LOL
This was just an instinct test Karen. Maybe, they use more bales when they do the real deal :0)
Oh, Trouble! Skid would have traded you places any day! :)
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