Welcome to Paws and Play, an online resource for everything related to dog sports and activities. Here, you'll find valuable information, tips, and insights into various dog sports, including agility, flyball, obedience, and more. Our goal is to provide you with a comprehensive guide on different dog sports, their benefits, and how you can get involved. Join us as we explore the exciting world of dog sports and activities, and learn what makes them so special for dogs and their owners.
Why should you do things with your dog?
Doing things with your dog helps provide mental and physical stimulation for both you and your canine companion. Doing fun activities together also helps strengthen your bond between you and your dog, providing a fun and rewarding way to communicate and build trust, enriching both of your lives.
Doing things together can be anything from participating in dogs sports to playing games at home, outdoor activities like hiking or paddle-boarding, or even just learning new tricks.
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What are dog sports and why participate in them?
Dog sports are structured activities that allow dogs to learn and develop specific skills, such as agility, obedience, scent detection, and herding. Often sports are based on real-life jobs that dogs are trained and bred for, but anyone can participate for fun and give their dogs an outlet for their natural instincts. Participating in dog sports promotes physical fitness, mental stimulation, and enhances a dog’s natural instincts, while also improving behavior and discipline. Engaging in these sports strengthens the bond between you and your dog, providing both a fun and rewarding way to spend time together. You can choose to do these things very casually just for fun, or even compete if you want to showcase the skills you've worked to build.
Types of Dog Sports
Find below a brief description of just some of the many paw-some activities you can engage in with your pup. The world of dog sports is large and nearly anyone can participate or find the right niche for them and their canine partner.
Barn Hunt
Barn Hunt is a dog sport where dogs search through hay bales to find hidden tubes containing rats, testing their natural scenting abilities and drive. Dogs must pass through dark and sometimes complex tunnels built into the course.
Flyball
​Flyball is a fast-paced relay race where teams of dogs jump over hurdles, trigger a spring-loaded box to release a ball, and race back to their handler, passing the baton to the next dog on their team.
Agility
Dog agility is a competitive sport where dogs navigate a timed obstacle course, demonstrating speed, accuracy, and teamwork as they complete challenges like jumps, tunnels, and weave poles.
Dock Diving
Dock diving is a dog sport where dogs leap off a dock into a body of water, competing for distance or height as they race to retrieve a toy or simply make the longest jump.
Scent Work
​Scent work is a dog sport where dogs are trained to use their sense of smell to locate specific scents or odors hidden in various environments, showcasing their natural tracking and scent detection abilities.
Tricks
Trick dog titles are earned by dogs demonstrating a variety of learned tricks, with different levels of difficulty, in a structured testing process that showcases their obedience and training skills.
The options are endless- don't see something here you like? Check out this page for a more comprehensive list of sports.
SPECIAL FEATURE: THE SPORT OF BARN HUNT
What is barn hunt?
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Barn hunt is a dog sport that was newly established around the early 2000s, but has continued to rapidly grow in popularity since its founding. The goal is for a team of dog and handler to successfully find all rat tubes hidden on a course built of straw or hay bales within a set time limit, testing a dog's scenting skills and drive. All rats are safely contained within sturdy aerated plastic tubes and are not allowed to be harmed. Decoy tubes of used rat bedding are placed around the course as well. Dogs and handlers must be able to discriminate which tubes are which and only alert to tubes containing rats to have a successful run. Calling on a decoy litter tube will disqualify your run. A tunnel is also built into the course, which a dog must pass through at least one time.
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Why do barn hunt?
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Barn hunt is a fun game for a dog and handler to learn to play. Some dogs naturally are driven to find the rats and get to fulfill their prey drive instincts that they are often now allowed to express, particularly for natural ratting breeds like terriers. Other dogs learn to find the rats as a job, and enjoy the game in a different way. Either way, it is a fantastic form of enrichment and a fun way to spend time bonding with your dog.
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How do you begin?
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Some dogs require almost no training at all, and have powerful prey drive instincts and allow them to be successful almost immediately. However, most dogs need to learn that the rat is what they are looking for, and how to communicate that the rat has been found to the handler, and how not to false alert on a decoy litter tube. Many facilities offer barn hunt classes that can take a dog from the initial introduction to the game, to the much higher difficulty levels. Some people choose to enter trials to test their skills in a competitive environment, while some choose to continue playing the game just for fun.
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What are the different levels of barn hunt?
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Barn hunt is a sport that has continually increasing difficulty in several ways. When competing, a dog must meet several qualifications to move up.
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Novice: Courses are fairly small, with one small straight tunnel, and 1 rat, 1 litter, and 1 blank tube. Three successful runs that are less than 2:00 minutes are needed to move up.
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Open: The courses are slightly larger, with a longer L shaped tunnel. There are 2 rats, 2 litters, and 1 blank tube. Three successful runs with less than 2:30 minutes are needed to move up.
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Senior: The courses are large, with a long tunnel that has at least 2-3 turns. There are 4 rats, 3 litters, and 1 blank tube. Three successful runs with less than 3:30 minutes are needed to move up.
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Master: The courses are very large, with a long tunnel that has at least 2-5 turns. There are an UNKNOWN number of rats hidden and the handler must be able to call clear when they believe all have been found. There can be 1-5 rats. There will be 8 total tubes on the course, and any that are NOT rats will be litters. For example, a run could have 1 rat and 7 litters, or 5 rats and 3 litters. Five successful runs with less than 4:30 minutes are needed.
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Crazy Eights: This is a for-fun game class, where there are 8 rats hidden in a very large course, with 4 litter tubes. Dogs must tunnel at least once and find as many rats as they can in 2:00 minutes to earn points. Bonus points are awarded to dogs that find all 8 rats, and extra bonus points are awarded to dogs that find all 8 tubes in less than 1:30 seconds.
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More information about barn hunt can be found at the official Barn Hunt Association website here.
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Videos of Crazy 8s runs where all 8 rats were found in less than 2 minutes!
GET TO KNOW DOG SPORTS
Welcome to our website about dog sports and activities! Join us as we explore the exciting world of dog sports and learn about the different activities that dogs and their owners can enjoy together. This is the perfect place for you to discover new ideas and connect with other dog enthusiasts.
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