Hello all,
I'm hoping someone can help recomend a good dog sport that I could get into with Duke when he's a bit older and I'm finished paying for college.
The most important things I'm looking for are
-affordability ( have a budget of around $1000 or so for training to get into the sport and maybe around $400-$500 to get any equipment I'll need for it)
-Accessability ( for both events and training areas, I'm in an urban enviroment so something that we won't have to drive more then a few hours to get to shows or training areas)
Next is for what Duke would both enjoy and be good at. He has three working/herding breeds in him and even at home is a highly focused work orinetated dog in the sense that if I ask him to do it (whether it's find your toy to playing a fetch game he puts 100% focus and attention into it). We do have a cottage and play a tracking game with my younger and older cousins and their dogs to kill time up their as non of us are into hunting and don't have a snowmobile so in the winter it's all their is really to do. Duke has only played it once but did very well.
Essentially the game entitles breaking up into teams, the hunter/tracker team only gets one or two handlers and one or two tracking dogs. The other team consits of 3-4 people with one or two dogs which need to hide and work as a team to remain from being caught but must take extra care to ensure their dogs are caught last or they lose.
None of the dogs who play have been trained in tracking but do very well none the less. We play in a large open field with patches of shrubs and trees, hiders get 10 miniutes to hide using 4 weelers or on foot and after that hunter/trackers and their dogs get to go try and find them using the dogs. Since the dogs are not formally trained in tracking they are allowed to watch as the hiders get to go hide while handlers need to turn away. At the end of the 10 miniutes the dogs can either be released with the handlers running behind them or on lesh if their recall is not very good and just used to flush out the hidding dogs( which usually bark at the tracking dogs when they get close).
Duke was only 3 months the last time we were up their and played along with my cousin and his boxer as trackers and he managed to find my one younger cousin hiding, so I wouldn't mind training him in tracking since the whole time we played the game he was having a blast sniffing away at the foot prints and checking in bushes and tree patches, where as many of the dogs who play need to be hiding dogs as they have no intrest in trying to find anyone hiding.
Other sports I wouldn't mind trying with him would be agility or maybe even flyball.
He is German Shepherd/Collie and Rotti if this helps in anyone assisting me in what I should do with him.
Thanks
Kayla
I'm hoping someone can help recomend a good dog sport that I could get into with Duke when he's a bit older and I'm finished paying for college.
The most important things I'm looking for are
-affordability ( have a budget of around $1000 or so for training to get into the sport and maybe around $400-$500 to get any equipment I'll need for it)
-Accessability ( for both events and training areas, I'm in an urban enviroment so something that we won't have to drive more then a few hours to get to shows or training areas)
Next is for what Duke would both enjoy and be good at. He has three working/herding breeds in him and even at home is a highly focused work orinetated dog in the sense that if I ask him to do it (whether it's find your toy to playing a fetch game he puts 100% focus and attention into it). We do have a cottage and play a tracking game with my younger and older cousins and their dogs to kill time up their as non of us are into hunting and don't have a snowmobile so in the winter it's all their is really to do. Duke has only played it once but did very well.
Essentially the game entitles breaking up into teams, the hunter/tracker team only gets one or two handlers and one or two tracking dogs. The other team consits of 3-4 people with one or two dogs which need to hide and work as a team to remain from being caught but must take extra care to ensure their dogs are caught last or they lose.
None of the dogs who play have been trained in tracking but do very well none the less. We play in a large open field with patches of shrubs and trees, hiders get 10 miniutes to hide using 4 weelers or on foot and after that hunter/trackers and their dogs get to go try and find them using the dogs. Since the dogs are not formally trained in tracking they are allowed to watch as the hiders get to go hide while handlers need to turn away. At the end of the 10 miniutes the dogs can either be released with the handlers running behind them or on lesh if their recall is not very good and just used to flush out the hidding dogs( which usually bark at the tracking dogs when they get close).
Duke was only 3 months the last time we were up their and played along with my cousin and his boxer as trackers and he managed to find my one younger cousin hiding, so I wouldn't mind training him in tracking since the whole time we played the game he was having a blast sniffing away at the foot prints and checking in bushes and tree patches, where as many of the dogs who play need to be hiding dogs as they have no intrest in trying to find anyone hiding.
Other sports I wouldn't mind trying with him would be agility or maybe even flyball.
He is German Shepherd/Collie and Rotti if this helps in anyone assisting me in what I should do with him.
Thanks
Kayla