[alaskayorkie]

Has anyone ever tried Earth Dog with their Yorkies? It's a sport to test a dog's ability to follow the scent of a rat through a tunnel. It's mainly for Terrier breeds.

A club held a demonstration on it for the first time in Alaska today, and it was pretty cool. The idea is to show the dog a rat in a cage and get him excited about it. For the demonstration, they had the dogs go through a wood box on land. In the real sport, the box is underground.

Eddie proved to be a champ going through the wooden box, but he failed miserably with the rat. He had never seen one before, and he was half afraid/half disinterested. They want the dogs to bark like crazy and try to get it.

I led him to a tunnel with a 90 degree turn and the rat in the cage at the far end. Eddie went to the turn and turned around. He wanted nothing to do with that dark tunnel. Of course, it was raining, too, so I don't blame him for being disinterested.

Oh well. It was fun trying. If I could have used a squeaky toy, he would have impressed everybody.

No rats are injured in Earth Dog, btw.

Here are a few pics.