Smoking Hot!

Those of you who have been following our blog know that our dogs are involved in the sport of Scent Hurdle Racing.  This is a relay race involving a team of four dogs, each of which has to race down a line of hurdles to a box containing four segments, and return with its own scented dumbbell to the start line.  Once the dog crosses the line with his correct dumbbell, the next dog is released.

The dumbbells are numbered and these numbers match those on the dog's racing jacket.  The races are timed and points are earned for clean runs and fast runs.  Two teams race at a time, with 
at least 12 feet between them.  So you virtually have two lanes with two boxes and two box loaders, whose job it is to keep four dumbbells in the box at all times for each dog to choose from.

Last weekend, at the Alberta Kennel Club Dog Show at Spruce Meadows in Calgary, we had nine teams racing, which gave us 36 races…. each team got to race 8 times.  Our Due South team won 6/8 races and tied for first place overall.  Very exciting for us as we had a very new dog (his second race ever) on our team.  It took five hours to complete the racing!  I am proud to say that Drummer never once lost energy or drive and he gained another 65 points towards his next SH title.  

I know that this is due to his handler maintaining and sharing her own energy, which motivated Drummer to keep going, no matter what.  At the end of the evening, when he should have been resting and thankful of that rest, the silly dog was still dancing around and playing with his leash.

Gotta love Drummer.