What's a really HARD dog? Check it out!!

Finishing up the 2007 World Championship, still trying to catch our breath and straighten out in our heads what all we really saw this weekend. This will be a two parter because I haven't got it all together yet, but I wanted to let our internet folks know that, we are trying to get the info up as quick as we can. And there is a lot of info you will be interested in!

For now I have to tell you I think I saw what all the IEs' call a 'hard' dog. A young American Bulldog named Bruce, that's right Bruce, i didn't name him, owned by Ryan Watson, came charging out in the courage test. We had chosen one of the very old distractions for this trial, a five gallon plastic water jug filled with rocks. Big, bulky, lots of noise. If kicked past a charging dog, it certainly got attention,and maybe even enough startle factor so as to deter a charging beast.

However this time as decoy Tim Stegall of Portland Or. lined up to send the rattlng, rolling, jug past the young charging dog, the dog hit an extra gear. Accelerating just as Tim kicked the jug the burst of speed brought Bruce head long into the five gallon jug! And I mean Headfirst! The rolling rock filled jug of rocks, heading south at about twenty miles and hour, slammed right into the head of Bruce.

Bruce, who had been heading due north at about thirty MPH slammed his head into the jug with a crash such as had not been heard before. The jug instantly changed to a north, northwest, trajectory as Bruce's forehead slammed into it. Still intent on Tim, Bruce now seemed a little disoriented when he charged past him, missing, then suddenly turned back and caught him by the right arm.

At first, to the audience, it seemed this dog had been easily deterred from the fight by the shaking quaking bottle of rocks,then the steward, Virginia Dunn picked up the five gallon jug and brought it back to center position on the field. That is when the crowd noticed one side of the thick plastic bottle had been dented in so the whole side of the bottle looked as if someone had taken a pie wedge from it. The dog and bottle had met with such force that the side of the thick plastic jug had caved in. Although the force never even slowed Bruce down I now understood why he had been so disoriented as to run past the decoy. But he had pulled himself together after missing few steps and come right back and done the job.

Now we all hear of all sorts of distractions people in Tuff Dog trials use to test what they call "Nerve". But slamming a dog hard enough to dent a five gallon jug, at a dead run, is definitely more than most are willing to try, and that is just a taste of how the big dogs ran this weekend, at the K9PS World Championship and as everyone trialled, on about three hours sleep a night, I will finish this up when I get at least four hours sleep and a pot of coffee down the hatch, till then.

Listen Well, Bite Hard (run over everything to save your partner)!!!

Gotta love a dog like that.