Thank you, thank you, thank you Carolina Terrier Association!

Down there? A squirrel? Really!? Ready to go!


"Go Squirrel!" Brick vanishes into the tunnel

No more Brick, just the faint sound of scrabbling in the tunnel.


You can barely see him through the bars of the dowels, and there's the rat in the cage. These are professional rats, so they are singularly unconcerned with dogs pawing and barking at the bars.

There's Brick in the den area, right in front of the bars.

We had an awesome time. First we did Introduction to Rats, with Kestrel being the loudest, Oliver being interested but the other loud dogs had him thrown off enough that he wouldn't go all the way through the tunnel, Whiskey wasn't that wild about a rat that was obviously not a problem, as it was in a cage. Brick went for the rat, after I reassured him that yes, I know it seems organized and well taken care of, but it really needed to be worked. He entered the short tunnel and when they started putting in the dowels to protect the rat cage, he started grabbing them, crunching them with his teeth, and trying to pull them up and out of the way. He then ran the short tunnel with the 90 degree turn, and they said to run him in Intro to Quarry practice.

So off we went - the pictures above are from that run. The tunnel is 10 ft long, with one right degree turn, all dark, with the rat in the cage at the end, the top is wood and the bottom is dirt, the entire thing is set into the ground, and only 9 inches tall and wide. As you can see, he entered the den, went all the way down to the rat, and started pawing, growling and chewing at the dowels - 30 seconds of that and he'd qualify. If he could actually run in the first place ( not allowed to run AKC).

The lady in charge of the rat and timing was enjoying it highly, and was telling people "you'd never guess what's in here!" pointing at the tunnel. I also got "largest terrier I've seen in a tunnel", to which someone started talking about some of the other taller terrier breeds. So proud of him, so we'll keep working him and Oliver and Kestrel on the earthdog stuff for fun. Stuff like this is a good test of my training and their behavior in a new place with a new experience.