Hallowe'en Barn Hunt

Halloween, 2015, found us at a Barn Hunt Trial, run by the United Dog Sports of Northern New England club, nearby in Saco, Maine. This was Lacy's second trial and Ginger's ??th trial. Lacy needed one more leg at the Novice level while Ginger needed two more legs for her Senior title. I left Ginger at home because she wasn't scheduled to run until later in the afternoon and Jack agreed to bring her over in time for that. This way, she didn't have to stay in a crate all day, waiting for her turn.

Lacy's first trial run was fairly early in the morning and she eked out a Q with four seconds to spare. Needless to say, no place for us but we did end up with a New Title rosette. Ordinarily, Lacy gives a good signal when she finds the rat but not today! She had to go over the entire course a couple of times before she finally settled on the correct tube...and then hadn't climbed the hay bales so we hurried up to get that in.

Because she received a title, Lacy "moved up" to the Open level and thus, had to wait quite a while to compete again. At this level, her job was to find two rats and go through a "closed" tunnel....(meaning the other end of the tunnel is beyond a turn and isn't obvious). Tunnels are not Lacy's strength and we've been practicing. However, she never got the chance to try this one. She found the first rat easily and, if I had left her alone, would have found the second one, but I called it too soon and so we were done.

Some of Lacy must have rubbed off on Ginger as well. Ginger's task was to find the four tubes containing live rats, go through a tunnel with at least two turns in it and climb on the hay. Tunnel...no problem. Hay bales...no problem. Rats? Forget it....she went to every place there was a rat but, somehow, failed to let me know that! Not one in the first trial and only one in the second trial.

Regardless of the result, we had a good time!