Paws in the Park, Part III - Coral Lure Coursing

Last year, Coral and I discovered a new (to us) sport called lure coursing. It's typically done by sighthounds, but since Coral has a high prey drive, I thought she'd enjoy it. And did she enjoy it. She sucked at it, but she had a blast. So when I found out they'd have lure coursing at Paws in the Park, I knew I was bringing Coral. This course was set up differently as last time, the path was bordered by 2 foot tall plastic orange fencing. Which does not bode well for my sweet Coral, who doesn't exactly turn well. One of the turns was a sharp 90 degrees. When she got to it, Coral sailed right over the fencing, and then couldn't get back in. We tried a couple more times, but she jumped at the same point every time. And got confused about how to get back in each time (I told you she was dumb).

One of the teenage volunteers offered to try to block her from jumping, but when I said she could try, but Coral can't turn, so 80 lb Coral might slam into her, she opted not to block her. Can't say I blame her.





Amazingly enough though, her best time was about 17 seconds. At the time, the time to beat was 13.5 seconds. My 6 year old lazy lab/dane mix did pretty good, considering she lost time by getting stuck outside of the course each time.

Lure Coursing is FUN!

A local agility club/Dock Diving group had a fun day on Sunday, and one new event they brought was lure coursing. It's actually not a "new" thing, it's been around since the 30s, but since I don't have sighthounds, I've never heard of it. From the link above, this is the short definition of lure coursing: "Lure Coursing is a humane sport which attempts to imitate the coursing of the rabbit or hare by sighthounds but without the hare. The sighthounds chase an artificial lure, usually a white kitchen garbage bag, sometimes tanned rabbit skins, or fake fur strips."

This is what it looks like when done correctly. That, however, was not what it looked like when my pups were playing. It took Coral a couple tries *cough*seven*cough*, but she finally got the hang of it.

Round 1: Coral took off after the lure, rounded the far corner, but didn't turn sharply enough. Then she just ran for a few more feet for the pure joy of running, and then make a quick turn and ran back to me at the start.

Round 2: Same as round 1.

Round 3: I guessed that when she stopped running, Coral thought she was too far away from me, so she kept running back to me. So I decided to start her off, then run inside the course with her so I wouldn't be too far away. The guy running the course ran the lure the opposite direction this time, and the lure went around a sharp corner, and Coral lost it, so went into her default and ran back to me.

Round 4: Coral ran about a third of the course, lure got too far ahead, and she gave up and ran back to me.

Round 5: She rounded the sharp corner again, apparently saw something shiny in the distance, and got distracted and chased after it. Then ran back to me, and I got her refocused on the lure.

Round 6: Tripped over the rope and pulled the lure off the course and had to restart.

Round 7: Made it around the WHOLE course chasing after the lure!

I NEVER said she ran it well, I just said she had fun.


Duke ran it twice after Coral's first two tries. He did exactly the same thing she did, but I thought his gait was a bit off the second time, so I was afraid he hurt himself again, so he didn't get to play again. Sad, because he's the one that likes to chase and that can actually take tight corners. Less prey drive than Coral though, so I wasn't sure if either would really take to it.