A New Activity for Ziva

Now that the Blog has worked out some of it’s bugs, I can publish some of these older posts.

Ziva has been such a hard, honest worker over the years in various dog sports. She has always loved using her nose and she is not ready to retire so it seemed natural to try our hand at some of the newer scenting venues. On May 17 we tried our hand at a Barn Hunt trial. We had taken several lessons and it seemed like a perfect match. She gets to hunt for vermin AND stay at a hotel, 2 of her favorite things 🙂

At the different levels, dogs must go through a tunnel, climb on bales of straw and find the rat all in a set amount of time. The time and number of rats varies based on the level. At Novice we had to find 1 rat in 2 minutes. There were 2 trials the first day and 2 trials the 2nd. You need 3 legs at a level in order to title and move up to the next level. Ziva qualified in Novice both days, placing 2nd and 3rd with times of 51 seconds and 1 minute 6 seconds. She had 2 minutes to complete all of the elements. On day 2 in her 1st run, she completed all of the elements in 12 seconds, placing 1st, earning her RATN title and was also High in Class!

The new RATN! Ha Ha, look at the little rat at the bottom of the photo