I’m taking my JRT to a Barn Hunt clinic this weekend to see if he has any aptitude for it. I think he will - he loves hunting mice/rats in my barn and hay barn. He’ll climb up the hay pile, but I haven’t tried him in a tunnel yet. He definitely gets excited when I ask him, “where’s the mouse?”
For those who have done these competitions, what do you do to practice, and do you keep your own rats?
If you don’t know what Barn Hunt is: www.barnhunt.com
SarahandSam on here does them with her dachshund… if she doesn’t see this thread, PM her.
I was working on Barn Hunt last summer until we got to winter. My trainer has the straw bale setup and rats.
The Barn Hunt tunnel is huge for your dog… as I recall… 18"x18".
He will have to learn to alert only on the rats and not the tubes with rat litter or empty tubes.
My BT doesn’t have quite the “kill” instinct I was hoping for but he’s good with his nose. We’ve also been working nosework over the winter.
Practice, find a local club if there is one and get together with them.
Oh, and if you are going to compete, read the rules 
I watched a competition a few weeks ago and knowing the rules really helped (where the tubes are, how many, calling the alert, etc).
I did read the rules before I went to watch a trial a couple of weeks ago. Still got fussed at for apparently making some sort of reaction when a dog missed a rat. Had to ask what it was I did, because I knew you weren’t supposed to do that!
What do you do for “nose work”?
Nose work…
But, I do not use their training methodology. I use http://www.fenzidogsportsacademy.com/index.php/courses/scent-sports which you can work on at home and, as you progress, outside.
I play Barn Hunt with one of my Cardis, and I’m going to see if my big guy (ACDXHound) wants to play as well.
I don’t have my own rats and don’t actually do much practice. The local kennel club does a couple of barn hunt trials each year, and runs practice days a few weeks before the trials, and that’s about it for me. I’m not as into Barn Hunt as I am, say, agility - I really enjoy BH because it’s something that particular dog likes to do, but it’s very instinctual for her - I haven’t really trained anything except for the tunnel command (which is really important). I’d like to do more practices, but I have zero desire to own rats, and building an upper level BH course takes a lot of bales! When my hay stock gets low, I do sometimes (though not very often) bring my girl out to the barn and let her climb around on the bales - there are no rats hidden (that I know of), but she’ll still hunt for them, so I reward her for checking likely hiding spots and climbs.
If you can, definitely work on his tunnel command - you can make a short one out of a few hay or straw bales, use an appropriately sized cardboard box, or see if you can find an agility tunnel to practice with. One of the hardest things to see is a dog that’s successfully found its rat(s), but then doesn’t qualify because it won’t do the tunnel in the time allowed!
Spectating at Barn Hunts can be tough if you know where the tubes are hidden - you really do have to discipline yourself to not react, because you really don’t want to give the handler any “outside assistance” even if it was unintentional. (Scribing can be tough, too - because in addition to (probably) knowing where the hides are, if you see the dog do a climb or tunnel, but the judge doesn’t say anything, you can’t mark that they’ve done it.)
I haven’t done an official Barn Hunt, but my Chinese Crested and I hunt the hay barn and the goat barn in earnest and usually leave with a few “trophies” in hand. I don’t get off the farm much anymore, but I sure would love to go to one of these events. I haven’t been to a dog show in years, which is strange to think about, because I spent half my teen years at dog shows.
Yep, I’ve done it, but unfortunately my dog has lost interest. He’s got a high prey drive for vermin, but he needs to see the rat first to activate it before he’s interested in smelling it out, and he just doesn’t see the point when he doesn’t get to eat the rat at the end. My other two dachshunds might be able to do it at some point, but right now they’re too anxious in new places and with multiple people in the ring.
But it is fun when your dog has the drive. There are often a lot of “fun matches” since it’s still fairly new and many places are getting started, so they have to host a certain number of fun trials before they can host a real one.
Instinct is very simple; the tubes are out in the open, and it’s just a matter of identifying the right one. When in doubt, you have a 33 1/3rd% chance of guessing it right, so if you’re getting to the end of the minute and your dog hasn’t indicated, go ahead and guess.
I think my dog would probably do better if I did practice, but it is tough without rats. I would love to get a pet rat or two again, but my husband would kill me. There are starting to be more lessons and “rat ‘n’ go” practice sessions at local venues, so that’s one way of practicing without your own rats.
I do nosework, but my dog doesn’t make the connection between that and barn hunt yet–I’d again need more specific work with rats.
Like others said, just read up on the rules, but you should be fine with little to no prep for Instinct. It really is just a test to find out if the dog has the instinct naturally. But ask your local BHA club if they are doing any Rat ‘n’ Gos or lessons before the trial if you’d like a chance to make sure your dog can put two and two together. And have fun!
We are entered in a practice this weekend. We will do an instinct test, and we signed up for a novice run just for grins. All for fun/practice.
We’ve had no training on this, just a hunch seeing how excited he gets when he smells mice/rats in the barn, and he’s caught a few. He also goes into the hay barn and hunts/catches mice in there.
Just as a test, when I came home from watching a real trial, I took him into the hay barn, and said, “where’s the mouse?” and he jumped up on the bales and started sticking his nose down between the bales searching!
If we need a little help with our technique (since we have none!), there is an actual clinic in May. Will probably sign up for that, too. (Unless he shows no interest at the practice.)
Sounds like he’ll do well! With the Novice test you might want to teach “tunnel”–it probably won’t take him long with bales I think the climb will probably be easy; with the two minutes total in the Novice test, most dogs who are natural ratters will climb just for fun, but tunnel might be worth teaching. For Novice it’s just a straight tunnel and only a couple bales long; usually the start box is set right in front of the tunnel so you can get it done fast.
I’ll probably start on tunnel tomorrow. Hopefully he can get some idea in the next couple of days since the practice is on Sunday!
[QUOTE=SarahandSam;8038314]
I do nosework, but my dog doesn’t make the connection between that and barn hunt yet–I’d again need more specific work with rats.[/QUOTE]
What method you teaching nosework?? My BT has, IMO, zippo drive for finding rats but we’re working off the premise that he can find 4 scents (well, at the moment, 2 : ))… Rat, anise, birch, clove…
But, I don’t teach ANWI/CNWI, I teach Fenzi and the early training is pretty different with how the dog learns how/when to alert and hold on odor. Reward is pretty much the same.
[QUOTE=SarahandSam;8038314]
He’s got a high prey drive for vermin, but he needs to see the rat first to activate it before he’s interested in smelling it out, and he just doesn’t see the point when he doesn’t get to eat the rat at the end.[/QUOTE]
Same here! My Dachshund Concoction has hunted rats in SoCal for real. At Barn Hunt, the first couple of times he found the rat, he politely looked at me, [hopefully] cueing me to release the rat so he could kill it. After enough reps of that, he figured out he was never going to get it and stopped caring (offering focus instead).
I also didn’t feel good participating in an activity that wasn’t fun for the rats. They lectured us about the rats’ safety and welfare and all the lengths to protect the rats. Still, how’d you like to be in that tube? 
Our BO has several JRT that have a lot of hunting bred into them
they were trained to Barn Hunt by actually hunting rats in one of the farm barns (not occupied)
Now in my opinion, they are terrorist hunters
BO uses one of the stalls as temporary kennel when she is away in the summer. They DIG around the edges (packed gravel) til they form a deep trench. They have trenched out the outside entrance to the barn and stall - now has been refilled and barricaded
they hunt Everything - CATS, chickens (and have dug into the chicken run)
Once I drove into the farmyard and the dogs were all over my car
hunting the chipmunks that get into the car at home
To some degree, be careful what you wish for
and BTW, on labor day weekend there is a BIG JRT trial outside High Bridge NJ (Point Mountain)
they hare races,races with hurdles,go to ground, barn hunt, lure coursing, obedience, obstacle races (sorry but those last two and JRT – amusing at best) but MANY MAY people come, some camp for the weekend. BEAUTIFUL FARM its held on
[QUOTE=Bicoastal;8039337]
I also didn’t feel good participating in an activity that wasn’t fun for the rats. They lectured us about the rats’ safety and welfare and all the lengths to protect the rats. Still, how’d you like to be in that tube? :([/QUOTE]
Depends on who’s rats you’re working with - I won’t go to trials where the rats are supplied by a specific club, because I don’t agree with how they handle their rat tubes - don’t think it’s fair to the rats OR dogs. I will trial with another club, because I think that they treat their rats more humanely.
That said, everyone I’ve worked with at Barn Hunts has been VERY concerned about kind treatment of the rats (though clearly, my standards for kindness differ from those of one of the aforementioned clubs), and protecting the rats in the tubes has been a high priority at the trials (and practices) I’ve attended.
Have fun at your practice, yaya! Let us know how it goes!
Took him out to the hay barn to introduce “tunnel”, and that took all of five minutes!
Started with an “alley” of two bales, just so he could see he was supposed to go between them. No problem. (The hound dog did it, too, but all she wanted was the treat at the end.)
Then topped the alley with a bale crosswise so he knew to go under it, but it wasn’t all dark. Again, no problem. (The hound dog opted out here, guess she figured she was too tall, and the treats weren’t for her anyway.)
Then the bale longwise so the whole length was covered. Again, went through both ways. Added an open alley at the end, went thru that a few times, then covered that so the tunnel was two bales long, all covered. By now, he was doing it on command, and no treats, just praise.
Finished with some climbs both in the haystack, and on top of the tunnel.
Will do a few more times until the practice, but I think he’s got this. Bring on the rats!
Yeah, the one club I’ve mostly gone to workshops and trials with is great with the rats. Their rats were raised and trained for barn hunt, and are definitely not concerned; even in a more open cage instead of the tunnel, several of them like to taunt and tease the dogs. I love rats and wouldn’t do anything with a club that didn’t treat their rats really well.
My Barn Hunt/nosework trainer has her own rats and even those (that came from a pet store as I understand it) are fine with dogs 
She has one tube that is clear and fascinating to watch the rats’ total lack of concern as the dogs are worrying the tube. They nap (the rats, not the dogs
In one of my first classes watched I Cool Hand Luka reach her foot out of the cage and bop one of the dogs on the nose, whereupon Devon wanted nothing more to do with Luka… mom, those rats are mean
What is also interesting is that some rats evidently don’t smell much and the dogs have a hard time alerting on them…
PS. If you peruse the Barn Hunt web page it is very clear how the rats are to be treated and handled. Rat “management” is also called out in the rule book so it is more than just how a local club might treat the rats.
I’ve got a very tired boy!
This was his longest car ride with me (over an hour), but he handled it well. We got there early, so went for a walk down the levee so he could pee and just get moving.
First was an introduction to rats in a cage. Two huge white rats! He’s never seen white ones! Didn’t seem real interested in the two in the cage, but got more interested in the single white rat in the smaller cage, especially when the cage was moved around. I made a bit of a rookie mistake in correcting him when he tried to bite the cage (didn’t want him to hurt the rat), but after a couple of repetitions, he got back into it.
Then a couple of go-rounds with the caged rat covered in straw (had to pick which straw pile had the rat), then a rat in a tube along with an empty tube and a litter tube like in an instinct test. He much preferred the covered-up rats. Guess it made it more of a hunt! It took me a few tries to read his reaction, but I started getting it too. (I kept looking for the biting, but all it took was a certain cock of his head and ears to show where the rat was.)
That ended our instinct session, so after a break and a picnic in the shade at Wendy’s, we went back for some novice runs. Bingo! Found the fun! I misread his first go, but when redirected he alerted on the rat, and had no trouble with climb or tunnel, even though the tunnel was set up for a higher level (had a couple of bends in it, so couldn’t see straight through). Our second go, he snubbed one straw pile and went straight for the rat, which was up on a bale (so automatic climb), and again had no problem with the tunnel. We decided to end with that instead of drilling it.
I think a couple more practice runs and we may be ready for the real thing!
Yay, glad you had fun! It is a blast to watch the dogs when they start to ‘get it’.
Over the winter been working on nosework with my dog. Today we started vehicles and practiced boxes (aka containers). Got some nice alerts out of my boy on the container/ORT work!!
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