Organisers Sue and Kevin Rose have ditched the usual elimination/competition rounds in favour of a round-robin system which gives all dogs equal opportunities to bomb round the course. This simple change has made their lure coursing sessions even more enjoyable than before, and it means that “tactical” runners like Biggles don’t lose out. You see my little boy doesn’t see the point in slavishly running round the whole track after the lure like Beanie; he figures it’s far better to analyse the course then head immediately to a suitable ambush point and wait for the lure come to him.

Biggles (background) heads to his carefully chosen ambush point while Beanie (foreground) chases the lure all the way round

In the past this advanced tactical thinking (or “cheating” as it’s also called) has resulted in automatic disqualification, but this time around Biggles got to fine tune his skills over the full three rounds. The result? Well, it’s not clear cut which approach was the most rewarding, and our two argued the point at length.

On the one hand, Beanie got the joy of running at top speed after prey each and every round…

On the other hand, Biggles clearly enjoyed his planning and plotting just as much; as he lay in wait for the lure his tail was wagging so much I thought it was going to drop off. And it’s not as if he completely missed out on the thrill of the chase, because each and every time the lure came he botched his chance to catch it and ended up sprinting after it just like Beanie..

The lure slips past Biggles once again…

But a least he’s now ahead of Beanie in the chase.

Surely victory is assured??!!

Well, no not really, because this is Biggles we’re talking about. At the finish line, his sister grabs the lure and immediately exchanges it for a big lump of chicken while his Biggleship remains convinced that the lure is hiding inside a tyre.

Eventually Biggles did get his jaws round the lure, but only once it had stopped moving!

Nevertheless this apparent success convinced other doggies to follow his example…

Someone else tries the Biggles strategy. Maybe it’ll work better for them!

Click here to see more pictures from Sunday’s lure coursing.

The doggy brains are easy to work with. But those hunting brains have us stumped and it’s restricting life for all of us. One by one, sports that we all enjoy so much fall by the wayside as they fall prey to those little hunting brains. Typically it’s a case of leaving before being asked to leave, or before the dogs do themselves an injury!

Over the years we’ve discovered that their hunting brain is oblivious to us. If during an onlead walk (is there any other kind?) they pick up a scent they both go into a frenzy of baying, lunging and pulling. Experts advise that we simply stand still and refuse to move until the dog calms down. The theory being that as going forward is the thing the dog wants most in all the world then it’s easy to very heavily reward the behaviour that you want – calmness. After spending a great deal of my life rooted to the spot with a little beagle that’s only getting louder and more frustrated by the minute I figured there must be a flaw in the theory. In actual fact they are capable of responding to us in this mode. We can get them to briefly sit in exchange for being allowed to move forward. But we haven’t managed to progress much further than that. Asking for calmness, quiet or even a minute reduction in excitement levels, seems to be a step to far for those little hunting brains.

The other day Paul wrote about the tuggy game that Heather Smith had prescribed to help teach the dogs self-control. Both Beanie and Biggles found it very easy to switch between calm and excitement and that got us wondering if the game was the route towards controlling those little hunting brains.

Yesterday we took the game forward a little by associating it with lure coursing – something guaranteed to switch off the doggy brains and put the hunting brains firmly in control. We had done this a little bit previously to get things warmed up, but this time the focus of the game was chasing the lure. We used a lunge whip with Mr Raccoon tied to the end of it. Boy was that fun – there was much yelping, baying and squealing:

Beanie is by far the fastest and most athletic chaser, but it was Biggles that always managed to catch the lure quickest. No matter how erratically I tried to move the lure he’d quickly figure out what route it was going to take and would lie in wait and pounce.

Every time they caught the lure we’d have a high energy game of tuggy

before telling them to release the toy and chill.

Both calmed down instantly and sat as good as gold waiting for the instruction to begin the chase again. In fact, in just one session we even got to the point where we could put them in a ‘sit-wait’ and start the lure moving. They were intently focused on the lure but didn’t give chase until told to.

We thought we’d cracked it. Lets fact it, it’s only a small step between this and being able to calm the dogs when they pick up a scent. We went to the park with Mr Racoon on a lunge line and the dogs in harness. Taking one dog at a time, the plan was for paul to slowly drag Mr Racoon across the ground. I’d let the dog, still attached to me, run after it. Then on command we’d stop and get them to ‘chill’. We took it in very tiny steps so that it progressed almost seamlessly from the game we’d played in the garden yesterday. It was a complete and utter disaster!!! They simply could not calm down no matter what we tried.

We certainly provided a superb spectacle though. Picture the scene: Biggles tied to a tree in the middle of the park baying his head off (and actually pruning branches of the tree with his teeth he was so frustrated) ; Paul running around the tree dragging a lunge whip with a toy racoon attached; Beanie in hot pursuit baying her head off followed by me getting increasingly more ratty with Paul as things descended further and further into chaos.

We did get a better insight into what was going on though. We discovered that if we let the dogs catch the lure and play a game of tuggy it was very easy to get them to sit nice and calmly waiting for the next chase. In fact, as in the garden yesterday we could even get them to wait for a release command even when the lure was moving. They can’t calm down if the ‘hunt’ isn’t allowed to go to conclusion.

We’ve thought long and hard about this. Tuggy is in fact a very calming activity for a Beagle. It might be fun, but it’s a release of pent up energy. Seeing a small fury thing flying past releases a whole bunch of ‘chase’ hormones and chemicals into their blood stream. A chase goes some way to blotting up those chemicals, but it takes either a very long chase or a ‘kill’ (tuggy) to get them out of the system thus allowing a calm, balanced state to resume.

I think the main thing we have to do is make sure that in all situations where we don’t want their hunting instincts kicking in we have to work very hard at keeping them calm and focused on us. So stop them going into hunt mode. They can do plenty of lure coursing and drag hunting to satisfy their instincts but it’ll be strictly under our control. For canicross I think we need to stay well away from parkruns and stimulating group runs (relaxed runs with calm dogs will be fine). We want them to learn that a run is a relaxed thing. Once they get that we can teach some commands and enter the odd race.

And for the situations where that fails we’ll work on the tuggy game so when the frenzied baying starts we can whip out a tuggy and use that to get them calmed down. I think we also need to work on getting them to respond to us when in a frenzy. We’ll never get them to calm down from this state but if we can get them to respond to a ‘wait’ command it gives us a chance to intervene.

A few more piccies of the fun in the garden yesterday.

Beanie and Biggles favorite thing in all the world is chasing. Last year we got them a portable lure and whilst they think that’s the bee’s knees it’s not suitable for smaller spaces. We wanted something that was as much fun as chasing a lure but that could eventually be used as a super exciting reward to make sports like agility more fun. Currently we use food rewards but the problem with that is that scraps of food found on the ground, in other peoples pockets or on stalls at an agility competition are every bit as appealing and we tend to lose control if there’s nosh within a 2 mile radius! We want something super-exciting that the pups know they won’t find anywhere except with us.

So, back to the pressie. The first part sounds a bit strange – it’s a lunge whip. The type they use for training horses. It’s a long, flexible pole with a ‘rope’ attached to the end. It cost about £5. Now it might not sound like fun but attach a rope to the end and wiggle it about a bit and you’ll be any Beagle’s best friend.

Here it is in action:

And some piccies:

The second part of the pressie is something a bit nicer than an old rag to chase and kill. A JML ‘crazy critter’ fox and racoon as advertised on TV:

These are just perfect for attaching to lunge whip – they’re all slinky and fluffy with squeakers in the head and tail that’ll make lots of lovely noise when the critters are being killed.

Anything that’s been attached to the lunge whip becomes exciting in it’s own right so in time I’m guessing that we’ll be able to stuff a ‘crazy critter’ in our jackets and whip it out at the end of an agility run to drive our pups wild with excitement.

Beagley pals Tara, Clara and Tess represented the Beagles along with Beanie, Biggles and half-beagle Bella.

Tess, Clara and Tara

Beanie & Biggles

The Beaglets all had a great time lure coursing:

Beanie and Biggles always work as a team. Beanie chases the lure whilst Biggles anticipates it’s path and cuts it off. The poor lure doesn’t stand a chance!

They also strutted their stuff in the fun dog shows.

Beanie and Biggles got a rosette in the ‘double act’ class :

Beanie left her dress lying by the show ring and came back later to find Bella wearing it!

Beanie had a thing or two to say about that!

Biggles got a rosette in the ‘handsome hound’ category.

Once again Paul was appointed official photographer and managed to get some fabulous shots.

And finally, a lovely shot of Beanie.

Beanie took to it straight away but Biggles needed a little encouragement. I don’t think he was scared of it, he just doesn’t see the point in jumping through something when it’s easier and just as quick to go round it. In some ways I’m starting to think he might be the smarter of our two Beagles after all..

Anyway, after the agility practice we headed up to Irvine moor to catch what is perhaps the biggest day of the Marymass festival. The previous Saturday we got to see the Festival of Light Procession and the fireworks, this time there was a huge  parade, horse racing and – my personal favorite – the climbing of the greasy pole!

The parade:

The horse racing. Not ordinary horses mind you – these were huge cart horses thundering down the track:

The greasy pole. Teams have to climb a thick, grease covered pole to retrieve a huge chunk of ham balanced on the top. How hard can it be? Well in this case, it proved to be very hard indeed:

Did they succeed? Well..

That’ll be a “no” then.

On Sunday we headed up to Rumbling Bridge for another lure coursing session. The forecasts had promised at least some decent weather but it didn’t work out that way:

Is it still raining Beanie?

Despite the rain, our two had some great races. I was really interested to see what would happen in the first one, where Beanie & Biggles got to race each other. You see last time hosts Kevin & Sue had changed the course and for the first time ever Biggles legitimately beat his sister! He just religiously followed the trail of tripe juice left by the lure, whereas Beanie tried to go too fast and lost it every time the lure changed direction.

Would Beanie avoid overshooting the corners this time? Would Biggles repeat his success?

Well, “yes” and “yes, sort of”. Beanie did a lot better on the turns this time, and Biggles did get to the lure first, but only by missing out half the course. Beanie took a slight lead down the first straight but as they approached the corner Biggles disappeared from view. I glanced round the course and finally located Biggles’ cheeky little white bum a couple of hundred yards across the field, waiting for the lure to catch up. And, as happened many times before, when it did catch up it caught him by surprise and he missed his chance to grab it.

He gave chase and arrived at the finish first, but his cheating ways (or tactical thinking if you prefer) earned him a disqualification. His other races all went the same way, but given that he was the one who consistently got a mouthful of tripe-soaked lure, I figure he went home feeling like a champ!

Thanks to Biggles, Beanie got through her first round, and I think a further round, before coming up against a rocket powered whippet. She ran her legs off, and bayed her head off, but it didn’t get her through to the final. On the other hand Kevin let her poke her snout  into the tripe juice jar for a brief but heavenly sniff, so you could say she came home a winner too.

Some more shots from a great, if rather wet, day of lure coursing:

Oi! Gimme that lure back!

The full set of shots is available here.

Paul had Beanie and Biggles attached to his canix harness. I set off running dragging a lure soaked in a mixture of aniseed and vegetable oil. After giving me a head start Paul and the Beaglets set off in search of me. I try and change direction when I am out of sight of the dogs in an attempt to loose them. They use a combination of scenting and sight to find me. Here’s a short video of them in action:

Sue and Kevin Rose are holding a lure coursing meeting on Sunday 22nd August – all welcome. More info on their blog.

Paws in the Park is on at Rouken Glen Park on Saturday 4th September. Lots of activities to try including lure coursing, agility, agility dash (no skill needed, prize for the fastest dog) and flyball. More info on the Glasgow Dog Training Club website.

Then on Sunday 5th September Sue and Kevin are holding a special lure coursing meeting to raise money for charity. This will include fun races, fun dog shows etc. Again, more details on Sue and Kevn’s site.

Biggly Boy – Our little boy has grown up!

Anyone that regularly reads our blog will know that Beanie has always been the athlete in our family. It’s not that Biggles is bad at sports – he’s actually pretty good compared to most. But Beanie really is quite exceptional for a Beagle. At lure coursing Beanie would always be glued to the lure and running flat out while little Biggles would make a bee-line for the home straight and pounce on the lure when it came past.

When we arrived today we saw that the course (which is normally the same every month) had been changed. We were confident that Beanie would manage just fine, but fully expected Biggles to be very confused by this – how would he run to the home straight if he didn’t know where it was? We were in for a BIG surprise. See for yourself:

Biggles absolutely trounced his big sister. He stuck to the lure like glue the whole way around and he was fast! For the first time ever Biggles had knocked his sister out of the competition – and he’d done it in style.

Biggly Boy was clearly enjoying his success and was very keen to check out the competition between races:

Biggles Meercat

In his next race Biggles was up against Biscuit, a very fit, fast little Whippet. We fully expected Biscuit to open up such a lead that Biggles would loose sight of the lure and give up. In fact, Paul positioned himself on the start line for photos thinking it would be the only part of the race Biggles would complete. We were SO wrong. For the first half of the course Biggles stayed with the lure. Biscuit would open up a lead (but a surprisingly small lead – our boy was powering around the course), but everytime the lure changed direction Biscuit would overshoot whereas Biggles turned with the lure and would take the lead again. If this kept up there was a chance that Biggles would do the impossible and beat a Whippet! However, on the second half of the course there was a nice long straight section. Biscuit built up a bigger lead and Biggles decided to cut a corner. They finished the race together but Biggly boy had cheated.

Beanie and Biggles had another run together at the end and exactly the same thing happened.

We think Beanie’s still got the raw speed, although there’s not much in it now. But whereas Beanie (and Biscuit) just loved to open up and run Biggly boy had one goal in mind – catching the lure. Somehow he knew when the lure was going to change direction. Had he detected the trampled area of grass where other dogs had run the course before? Was he using scent and sight? It looks as if our boy is a lot smarter than we’ve given him credit for!

Here’s a couple more pictures from the day’s racing.

There are more of Paul’s piccies from Sunday on Sue and Kevin’s blog:

http://lure-coursing.blogspot.com/2010/06/photos-from-sunday-6th-june-2010.html

http://lure-coursing.blogspot.com/

A great day out for dogs and their two-legged companions! Especially good fun fo for hounds and terriers.

Cuillen and Biggles were first to race. Cuillin got off to a good start:

but lost interest after the first corner. Biggles took a short cut then romped over the finish line with Magic the poodle (who joined the race in the final straight) hot on his heels:

Cuillin should be in the race, and Magic shouldn’t!

But Biggles doesn’t care! His cheating ways have put him in the lead!

Bundy was next. She drew against a very fast whippet in her first race but she did very well:

Finally it was Beanie’s turn. She too was drawn against a whippet. She ran her heart out:

cut a couple of corners and managed a dramatic neck and neck finish:

But was pipped at the post. So all the Beagles were knocked out in the first round. We’d thought that Biggles was through but the judges awarded the race to Cuillin – no doubt because of Biggles’ shameless cheating!

We finished up with a couple of races with all the Beagles and Cuillin. In the first one Beanie took off after the lure while Biggles took a direct route to the half way point with Bundy hot on his heels. Beanie managed to catch them up despite the fact that Biggles only ran half the course, but our little boy slipped up a gear and managed to hold off his big sister to win the race.

In the next race the lineup was the same:

Cuillin was released slightly ahead of the others and this time he followed the lure almost half way around the course!

Biggles took his cheating a stage further and ran directly to the home straight to wait for the lure:

What’s wrong with this picture?

So Biggles wins his third race of the day…in his own unique way!

You can see the full set of photos from this lure coursing session on Flickr – click here.