For the past couple of months Gambler and Josey have been training for their first Barn Hunt trial.

What is Barn Hunt you ask?

Barn Hunt is the new and quickly growing dog sport catching fire across the country! Barn Hunt is based on the traditional roles of many breeds in ridding farms, barns, crop storage areas, and homes of destructive vermin. Some breeds were specifically created to fill this role, and for many of those breeds, Barn Hunt provides their first true opportunity for responsible breeders to test proper working traits in their dogs. Barn Hunt is also open to any dog of any breed or mix who wishes to play the game and can fit through an 18″ wide by bale-height tall tunnel. Barn Hunt has titles, levels of increasing difficulty, and championships. Barn Hunt is an independent sport, but titles are recognized by both the American Kennel Club (AKC) and United Kennel Club (UKC).

You can read all about Barn Hunt here.

This past weekend we had our first trial at the Janesville-Beloit Kennel Club. Gambler was entered into the Instinct class which is the lowest class. You can choose to enter this class or you can skip it and enter the novice class.

Waiting to run.

The instinct class is where you and your dog go into the ring with the straw bales, there is a tunnel that you can have your dog go through or you don’t need to. You can also have your dog climb on the bale or they don’t need to. There are three tubes in a line. One has nothing, one has rat bedding and one has the live rat in it. The goal is that they need to pick out the tube with the rat in it. They signal you and you call out “Rat” and the judge tells you if they picked the right container. This all needs to be done in under a minute.

Waiting in the blind for our turn.

This event was held at the local fair grounds in Janesville, WI. The courses were in a covered building without heat. You needed to stand outside and wait until the blind was empty and ready for you. Sunday when we went it was cold, raining and pretty much crappy outside. Even know I look like I was bundled up I learned I needed more clothes.

The blind is a enclosed area where 5 people with their dogs sit and wait for their turn at the course. You are not allowed to see where the rat tubes are placed. When it is your turn your name is called.

Getting Gambler over to the area where the tubes were so he could pick out the rat.

When the judge told us that we could start when we wanted to Gambler made a beeline to the tubes and sniffed each one and then alerted me to which one the rat was in by scratching at it. I called rat and he completed the course in less than 8 seconds. He passed and got his RAT1 title. This title is recognized in UKC but not in AKC. AKC will recognize the other titles such as novice, open, seniors, masters.

After we did the instinct we entered the novice class, this was also the class that Josey entered. There were two trials on Sunday.

Gambler doing his climb and looking for the rat.

In the novice course there is one rat tube, one bedding and one empty tube in the bales. You need to find the one rat and before or after you find the rat your dog needs to go through a tunnel and climb up on the bale to complete the course. This all has to be done in less than 2 minutes. In each trail I called rat and there was no rat in the tube so we failed.

Josey had a great novice run, the first run she completed it in 44 seconds with alerting to the correct tube with the rat in it. The second run she did even better, she found the rat in 21 seconds. She was on fire! She received second place in the first trial and then she received first place in the second trial.

Josey’s 2 passes out of 3 for her novice title.

Josey’s novice trial 1 video.

Josey needs one more pass in novice for her UKC and AKC RATN title.

Gamblers Instinct title.

A video of Gamblers Instinct run.

Even know the day was cold and deary we had a fun day. Our first barn hunt was a success. Congrats to Tom and Josey for a job well done. It’s nice to go hang out with friends and do dog events, it’s even nicer to be able to watch a dog that you bred do so well in an event.