WW: Terrier Racing

Terrier racing is a sport similar to lure coursing or straight racing, in that a lure and/or plastic bag is attached to a line and dragged across the ground for the dogs to chase. Terrier racing is different in that the dogs are run in groups of up to six, are loaded into start boxes, and end in a dive through a hole after the lure. The first dog through the hole wins. Terrier racing can also be over jumps as well as flat ground.

In the back of these photos, you can see the start box (the green outlined thing). It has mesh on the front of the doors, so the dogs can see the lure and be ready to break out of the box when it opens.

Over jumps is the same, except jumps made out of cloth covered foam are added. The jumps are soft so that if a dog hits them, they won't get injured.

For both over jumps and on flat, the dogs end going through a padded wall that has a small hole in it, big enough for one dog to fit through. First dog through the hole wins. Since this is terriers, sometimes there can be disagreements about the entire process. Because of that, dogs are required to run wearing muzzles.

Like the rat games, terrier racing is a fun sport to do with a jack russell, and most of them naturally take to it (though training on box loading can be pretty important for many dogs).

Dogapalooza

This past weekend, I took a spur of the moment trip to Washington. Dogapalooza was happening at the Cowlitz County Fairgrounds as a fundraiser for the local humane society, and there was a flyball demo. I wasn't originally planning to go, but when a teammate said they were going and said they had room for me, I thought it would be a great way to spend the day.

I picked up Pallo early in the morning and met my teammate in Salem, then we drove together to Longview, WA, arriving at 10 am. There was a farmer's market across the street, which was a fun little diversion while we waited for the rest of the flyball people to arrive. And then the fun started.

First up, I took Pallo over to the "musical chairs" competition. Basically, a bunch of dogs were in a fenced area walking in a circle to music, and the last dog to sit when the music turned off was out. We lasted until the last half or so, but then Pallo decided sitting was stoopid. But, our teammate Chester ended up winning!

Then, we put together a bit of a flyball demo. I boxloaded for one of the three dog lineups. Most of our dogs did really well. They tend to somehow know when we do demos and pull lots of stupid stuff like running around jumps that they would never normally do, but there wasn't much of that. Even though Pallo is retired from flyball, I did bring him out to run in a singles race against Henry, an adorable little tailed corgi who looks a lot like Pallo. Henry had a few "moments" during the singles, but Pallo was his normal reliable self, only spinning on the last of four heats (he did the same in our afternoon demo too, I think 3 heats is his limit before a spin hits).

Then I brought out Koira to do some drills. While she is on Glycoflex Plus to help increase her range of motion and decrease arthritis related pain (check out my blog post last week about how you can try a month of Glycoflex for free), I also am doing some training to improve her confidence.

This drill is meant to increase Koira's drive to the box by placing the reward (me with a tug) at the box. The idea is that she will drive faster towards the box that way. I reward right after her box turn.



So far, it seems like this drill is really helping her. You can see in the video that she double strided in the first run, but then single strided in the others. I did cut out some of the video, and we didn't video all of the runs, but overall, I'd say that by the end she was single striding 4/5 runs. Hopefully we'll be able to stay successful with the upcoming tournament this weekend.

After we did the flyball demo, Koira went over and competed for Best Kisser (she came in 3rd) and I helped a flyball friend with three jack russells bring her dogs over to the lure coursing set up. There wasn't a ton of room for the coursing, so I didn't bring my dogs, afraid that on such a tight twisty course they would injure themselves. The jacks did great, and were kind of terrors while waiting, screeching and hollering the whole time.

A second flyball demo was thrown in there at some point, and I again boxloaded, ran Pallo in singles, and ran drills with Koira. It was actually the second time around that we ran the drills with Koira that I asked someone to video. The first session we didn't have a dog for Koira to pass on the way in, but I think it is a good addition to the drill, since Koira likely will be passing at the tournament, at least some of the time.

The end of the day was the Low Rider race. Pallo is the reigning champ. He smoked the competition in his first heat, and was easily into the finals. The finals was four dogs- Pallo, Henry (the corgi he was running singles against), Chester (the other corgi on my team), and one other corgi. Pallo managed to defend his title, but by the skin on his nose. Henry was a super close second, followed by Chester, and then the other corgi. Against the flyball dogs, the other corgi didn't have much of a chance, but for your average pet dog, he did have an awesome recall.

The day was long, but fun. A long drive home at the end of it wasn't too awesome, but it was nice to get home early enough to relax, take a walk, and go to bed early.

Wordless Wednesday: Post Racing Photos

Pallo won Best of Opposite Sex in his group.

Koira came in a solid second every time, but didn't earn a ribbon

Straight Racing

I think I've kept you all in suspense long enough.

Sunday, I posted a preview photo and asked if you could guess what we were doing on Saturday. What happened is that we had a great chance to take some dogs straight racing with a local club, so made an almost-2-hour drive down to Cottage Grove to spend the day racing dogs with friends.

An Italian Greyhound at racing

Now, since I was there just to have fun and run my dogs and spend time with friends doing something fun, I didn't get a ton of pictures. I spent most of my time running dogs and volunteering. But I couldn't resist getting a few pictures, and asking someone else to get some of my dogs when they were running.

Two Silken Windhounds running

The local racing club, SORCA (Southern Oregon Racing and Coursing Association) put on a LGRA (Large Gazehound Racing Association) and IWRA (Independent Whippet Racing Association) race meet. What is extra awesome is that SORCA not only allows non-sighthounds to race, but they offer club titles for non-sighthounds as well. All non-sighthounds are affectionately referred to at racing as "nose hounds" which is kind of cute.

A program of three Silken Windhounds breaking from the starting box

Racing is different than lure coursing in a few ways. First, racing is either straight racing (what we did) or oval racing. There isn't a course full of zigs and zags for the dogs to follow the lure over. Also, since the course is pretty straight forward, unless there is a foul, the dog who crosses the line first (by the tip of the muzzle) wins the race. There isn't any grading of how well the hound did in agility, endurance, etc. Also, a start box is used, like the photo above. It gives a more fair start than hand slipping the dogs since the doors all open at exactly the same time. The start box was actually busted when we started racing for the day, but got fixed part way through. Most people ended up hand slipping the dogs all day, though a few did use the start box.

The small size "nose hounds" on their final run of the day

The nose hounds were broken up into two different groups, with the large dogs (a lab, a staghound/border collie mix, a smooth collie, and a dutch shepherd) competing against each other, and the small dogs (Koira, Pallo, and a border collie) competing against each other. Poor Pallo didn't have any chance of winning being up against dogs with so much longer legs, but he went out, ran great, and crossed the line strong each time. The whole course here was a 200 yard straight sprint.The fourth dog you see in the photos of my dogs is a mini Aussie, who only ran in the third of three programs as a "ghost dog" (for no placement or points) in order to give Pallo someone to race against, which I really appreciated.

You can see that Jazz and Koira are pretty evenly matched, as are Pallo and the mini Aussie

The dogs run three times over the course of the day. Up to four dogs run at the same time. Each dog is assigned a blanket number/color to wear during the race. All dogs are required to be muzzled, both for safety of the dogs and to prevent the lure from being damaged. The lure is something that looks like a dead racoon and squawks when it bounces across the ground, as well as a white plastic bag, and it can get damaged pretty easily if the dogs aren't muzzled. And it isn't cheap to replace. When muzzled, though, you can let your dog attack the lure at the end a little. I really encouraged Pallo to do that, since he was so soundly beat by the other dogs I didn't want to discourage him. So he got to punch the lure and make it squeak with his muzzle at the end of each run.

Even a little blurry, I have to love this picture of Koira. I was at the end to catch her, so this picture was taken by someone who was totally new to handling my camera, and I am super grateful that they were able to do so and get some fun pictures of my dogs. 

Overall, we all had an awesome time. SORCA is made up of some great people. Everyone was nice, willing to teach us newbies what to do, and help us out when needed. Everyone stepped up to fill the volunteer positions needed to make racing happen.

Afterwards, we had to get a picture of the "nose hounds" all together. I put this group together pretty last minute, only a few days before the event, with everyone except the Dutch shepherd being on my flyball team. The Dutchie's owner is a facebook friend and lives pretty local to the trial location, and wanted to come. We were glad to include her. The lab that ran isn't included in this photo as they had already left at this point. She wasn't someone we knew, but I think was related to the person who owns the field. Her dog ran great, and got second.

All of the Nose Hounds posing in racing blankets and muzzles with their ribbons. That is the starting box that we are all posed around. You can see how it opens in the picture above of the silken windhounds breaking from the box. 

Portland Meadows

Some of my readers may know that Oregon banned greyhound racing a few years back. However, we do still have a horse racing track in Portland called Portland Meadows. I have never had a chance to see live racing, and really wanted to give it a try. So, the dogs went and spent the weekend with my mom while I worked Saturday and then took Sunday for a day at the track. I went with a fellow flyball person who has a history in the horse world, and we had a total blast!

Arriving in the lobby of Portland Meadows, there were a bunch of paintings and photographs on the walls of famous horses, both at this track and Oregon bred horses winning elsewhere.

I spent a bit of time poking around the lobby inspecting the pictures while waiting for Nicole to arrive. She got there just in time for us to go see the horses for Race 1 in the saddling paddock. We walked around, saw the horses, then headed outside to watch the race. Some kids next to us told us that number 8 was going to win.

While in at the paddock (which is indoors at this track due to the amount of rain we get in the fall), me and Nicole were commenting how small 8 was, so we just smiled and nodded. But the kids not only were right, and Foxy (as they called the 8 horse) not only won, but turned out to be owned by their family.

Foxy, number 8, pulled ahead of the rest of the pack for a win in Race 1

We went and got some food, drinks, checked out the horses, and watched another couple of races.

I had made the decision even before heading to the track that I would bet on a few of the races, but that my total limit to spend at the track was $20 including food, drinks, and betting. If I won anything, I could spend it if I felt like it. That way, I knew I wouldn't go too overboard. A minimum bet is $2, so I figured I could bet on a few races easily enough.

We bet on horse 7 in race four, because he was shiny. Turned out not to be the winning stroke of luck, because we lost. Then, me and Nicole decided we probably needed to get a program so we could bet based on something other than purely the horse's looks.

In race five, we were a bit better informed. I bet on #5 to win, while Nicole bet on #4 to win, with the agreement that since we both liked both horses, we would each bet on one and split the winnings.

Horse #4, Legendary Madame, pulled through for us and caught us a win. Since I was out of cash, its a good thing, too, because otherwise my betting would have been done for the day!

In the next race, the program had #5 listed as the favorite. Taking a look at the stats, I would have chosen him for my bet, but when we actually went in and looked at the horses, Enterprise Zone, horse #4, caught my eye. He was a total fireball, rared up and ready to go. He was obviously eager to get out and run, and every other horse was a bit leery of him when walking by in the paddock. His jockey had no wins listed in the program. But I decided why not, the betting was just for fun, and I really didn't expect to or plan to win anything. So I put my $2 to win on them.

During the post parade, one of the owners was walking by where I had stationed myself (at the best vantage point for pictures) and asked who my pick was. I told him #4, and when asked why, because every other horse on the field was scared of him! Turns out, he was Enterprise Zone's owner, and told me that if he won, I needed to come be in the Winner's Circle photo. I just laughed and said okay, as #4 was, at the point, listed with some of the longest odds of any horse in the race.

Wouldn't you know he pulled it off though? That little guy sure knew his business, and his jockey really helped bring him home in a great run. And sure enough, his owner told me and Nicole that we needed to get up in the Winner's Circle with him and his family and the horse. So, somewhere out there, we are in that picture, and were on national TV at the same time!

The rest of the races were still a lot of fun, and both me and Nicole both got another payout ticket (on two different races), but they were both in the $4 range instead of the $20 payout I got on that little guy above. I came out of it even, with my wins offsetting the money I spent on food and the bets, which was more than I even hoped for.

Overall it was a great, really fun day.  I'm hoping I get a chance to go out there at least one more time (if not more!) before the fall season closes in December. It was great to see all of the horses and how excited they were to run. A lot of them reminded me and Nicole of our dogs lining up for flyball, all business, trembling and twitching, ready to get out there and run, and sometimes causing some problems in their excitement and single mindedness!