Get That Rat!

Mimi and I had quite an adventure yesterday--her first experience with earthdog. For those of you who lack terriers, earthdog is a competitive, titling sport for the small and medium sized terriers. The dogs have to find (at the advanced levels) and enter a 9x9 inch tunnel (wood roof and sides, dirt floor) then navigate its length until they arrive at the end where they find the rat. Yes, a real, live rat. The dogs aren't supposed to run overground to the rat, they have to go through the tunnel. The rat is in a metal cage that is behind heavy wooden dowels. The dogs aren't supposed to make contact with the rat but they are supposed to "work" it for a specified period of time. Sitting and staring doesn't count. The dogs must do something like bite the dowels or dig, and it is good but not required that they vocalize. The judge sits at the rat end and has separate access to the dog and the rat as needed.

My friend Anne asked if I'd like to help the club dig and lay out the tunnels for their trial next weekend. She dangled good bait: members who helped could practice on the tunnels afterwards. She said, yes, you're not a member but I'm the VP, and I can probably arrange something if it's a problem.

It was a long, hot, dry, dusty, windy morning but many hands make short work of such tasks. In less than three hours, we had the Introduction to Quarry, a 10-foot tunnel with one 90 degree turn, and the Junior tunnels dug (with the help of a backhoe, amazing invention), laid out, leveled, and buried. Another team took care of the Senior tunnel which was quite a distance away in a brushy, wooded part of the farm.

After lunch and the club meeting, one of the club members who is a judge headed out to the Intro tunnel with a rat and her dog. Anne and I hotfooted it out there after her with Anne's JRT bitch Skeeter and Mimi.

It took some convincing but at last Mimi went into the tunnel. The judge was holding the door open at the end so there was plenty of light--at only 10 feet, Mimi could certainly see the exit once she got into the mouth of the tunnel even with the 90 degree turn.

We spent quite a bit of time encouraging Mimi to be a very good terrier: biting, whining, barking, digging, and otherwise pitching a fit to get to the rat.

Sigh. Another photo of my butt. But this is a nice one of Mimi's butt! Mimi is going into the Junior tunnel. There is a right turn, then a left, then another right, before she gets to the rat. The tunnel is around 20 feet long! Mimi stands almost 16 inches at the shoulder so she has to really crouch down to get into then move along in the 9x9 inch tunnel.

The Junior tunnel proved to be more of a challenge. It was almost 20 feet long with three 90 degree turns. Mimi was pretty disconcerted by the length of the thing and gave up twice, backing out the way she came. It took quite a bit of encouragement to get her to go in there and keep going. But she did it! Twice! And worked the rat for well over a minute each time.

You'll notice in the video that I am stroking her while she is working the rat. That is to ensure that she doesn't back up out of reach when the door is opened up--because unfortunately that usually signals that the handler is going to pull the dog out and the fun is going to end! When I did reach in to get her after her second Junior run, she dropped even lower to the ground to keep me from getting my fingers around her and kept working the rat! She did not want me to pull her out of the tunnel. Very amusing.

Even though the activity is somewhat artificial, going after vermin is what the smaller terriers were bred to do. The idea is that they are displaying behaviors that were selected for and encouraged. It was really fun to see Mimi's enthusiasm for it.

The trial is next weekend. Anne has her PRT Forrest entered in the Senior class on Sunday. I found out today from my friend DSL, who did earthdog for several years with her SFT Meggie, that I could enter Introduction to Quarry and Junior classes on the same day. I will probably take Mimi up there on Sunday (to keep within my general competition rules). Once classes start I may not have the luxury of time for these sorts of activities so I figure that I might as well enjoy them while I can.