my doG blog: K9 Fun Zone Barn Hunt Part 3

The Champion is revealed!

I had made my bets in my head about who would be the most interested in this game and I was wrong! This is a good lesson for me. The thing to remember is you just never can tell what will turn a dog on. And this goes for assessing if a dog is cat friendly or not. You can't go by prey drive because the dog who was the champion in finding the rat is not the highest on prey drive of the dogs in my house right now. This dog happens to be the least interested in the cat in our house too. Here was my guess as to who would be into the rat hunt from 1-5 with 1 being the most into it.

1) Liza, Sierra tied in my mind, both are big on things that move or make noise on walks.

3) Birdie

4) Sybil

5) Skip

This was my guess from the way these dogs act when we are out on our walks, and also who likes to hunt squirrels and birds in the yard. Now the only difference here was Rat was not moving and that could be a big reason why my prediction went south. Had Rat been able to run across the room and the dogs been able to chase I do believe my guess would have been much more accurate. My prediction of who would be the least interested was right on. Skip has occasionally been interested in a squirrel when we are out walking but his recall is still very intact making me think he is not THAT into stalking the squirrel. He is a ball man through and through and so it was a good thing he found the ball at the Fun Zone because silly mom and dad didn't think to bring him one. When will we learn???

OK so here is the champion working to find Rat! Birdie, who you might remember is also deaf, was really into this game, even though we weren't pairing it with treats! She just liked finding Rat.

This next video Skip inadvertently finds Rat. Lindy had the idea that we could hide the ball Skip had found in the hay and this was great for him. He had more trouble finding this ball, we are wondering if he had is ball Blue if he would have had more success, he spends so much time with Blue and has had the same Blue for over a year.

I really think Skip was on to Ball but I wonder if he could not see it due to the way dogs see color, and I also wonder if he forgot how that ball smells? (the black tube next to the ball is empty). I love seeing Skip work anyhow and if we didn't have a time frame I would not have been worried if it took him an hour to find the ball, and we wouldn't be helping him. This kind of work is so good for dogs and it is okay if they need time to process it.

Here is the champion, BIRDIE, finding Rat in what Lindy says is the hardest hiding spot. If you watch til the end you will see Birdie do a funny thing. She flips her back legs in the air to go into the tight spot to find Rat! Good Girl Birdie-Girl!!!!!!

In case you were wondering if Skip ever found Ball......we were running out of time so he had some help. I love to see him so engaged and looking happy.