BAY CITY, MI - Step aside, baseball and hockey, there’s a new sporting club in town. This club doesn’t aim to make field goals or home runs but instead is hard at work playing an unlikely game of hide-and-seek with rats.
A canine sport club started in Bay City to participate in two different sporting events, Barn Hunt and Happy Ratters. Both of these sports cater to dogs’ natural abilities and instincts as hunters.
Barn Hunt is a throwback to the days of dogs flushing out vermin from barns and storage facilities. Dogs and their handlers work on finding special tubes containing live rats that are stashed away in straw bales.
Happy Ratters, on the other hand, simulates an urban environment with trash and litter scattered as obstacles. The rat tubes are stashed away underneath newspaper and in boxes and the dogs are tasked with sniffing them out.
“It’s meant to simulate more like an alleyway in New York," said club secretary Jillian Gerhardt.
Gerhardt also is the club rat keeper, as she owns and takes care of rats that partake in the sport.
She explained how the utmost care is taken to make sure that the rats are completely safe and comfortable. The rat tubes are made of a thick PVC pipe for protection and have a screw-on lid that is secured and air-holes that keep their limbs and noses from accidentally poking out.
“There are a lot of rules in this sport to protect the rats, specifically like if we’re hiding the rats we can’t hide them in such a way that they would fall more than one bale if they were to fall off the straw," said Gerhardt.
Just like human athletes who need to take a break on the bench during a game, the rats are switched out in-between rounds to get some rest. Rats are required to take a half-hour break.
Any dog of any age and breed is allowed to participate in both sports, according to Gerhardt. The only limitations are that a dog must fit through an 18-inch tunnel for Barn Hunt and that dogs cannot have mobility issues, such as a limp, since dogs are expected to climb up on straw bales.
Gerhardt said that Happy Ratters does allow dogs with wheelchairs and other limitations, however, since no climbing is necessary.
So far the Bay City Happy Ratters club is the only Happy Ratters club in Michigan. Barn Hunt is already starting to spread throughout the state, with the nearest group being the Barn Hunt Buddies in Fenton.
Gerhardt said that both clubs are the first of their kind in the Bay City area.
The club meets at Kaybee’s K9 Training at 1405 N Johnson Street to practice their skills every Thursday. Practices alternate between Barn Hunt and Happy Ratters.
The two sports serve as an outlet for both dogs and humans to enjoy. Kaybee’s owner and apprentice Happy Ratters judge Kristine Felske said, “It’s a very social sport and so a lot of people have a high energy dog, they work all day, and this gives their dog an outlet to be able to do something and it gives you a chance to start bonding with other people.”
Marlane Searfoss of West Branch travels down to Bay City to partake in the club and said that her spaniel Ellie enjoys the experience.
“She’s getting better each time we come down there and she seems to be having more fun," she said.
Searfoss and Ellie are a therapy dog team and also participate in other canine sports like agility. This type of sport serves as a way to let Ellie’s natural instincts as a hunting breed shine.
“I wanted to give her something that’s her instinct to do, her nose," said Searfoss. “She really enjoys it.”
Those interested in joining are able to attend beginner workshops at Kaybee’s on Jan. 25 and 26. The four-hour workshops address the basic skills needed to learn for the sport
2020-01-04 12:47:00Z
https://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw-bay-city/2020/01/new-canine-club-in-bay-city-plays-hide-and-seek-with-rats.html
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