Barn Hunt is a relatively new dog sport, as it began in 2013 as a way for dogs other than the small terriers and dachshunds, who are able to run in Earthdog trials, to hunt for vermin. Barn  Hunt is open to all breeds of dogs, and breeds from Chihuahuas to Great Danes have succeeded in this sport.

In barn hunt, bales of straw are arranged in various configurations in a ring about 24’x24′ in size. Rats are used for the hunt, and they are enclosed in 4″ PVC tubes which have air holes and a grate, so the rats are completely safe from the dogs. The rat tubes are hidden among the
straw bales and loose straw fluff, and the dog needs to sniff out the rat tube and indicate to the handler that they have found a rat. Complicating the hunt a bit is that there are tubes on the course that contain only a little bit of rat bedding (“litter”) that the dogs have to differentiate from the actual rat tubes. In some levels there is also an empty (blank) tube on the course. The handlers do not know the location of any of the tubes ahead of time, so they have to trust the dogs to use their noses to find the rats. 

There are 4 levels of competition, with the number of rat & litter tubes increasing with the level: 

Three qualifying runs are needed at each of the first three levels to advance to the next higher level. At each level, the dog needs to find all the rats, climb up at least one straw bale, and go through a tunnel of the bales on the course, all in less than the course time allowed.  If the dog  runs out of time before doing all three things, or if the dog (or handler) makes a mistake in calling a litter or blank tube as a rat, the dog does not qualify.
The Master level provides extra challenge to the handler because there is a variable number of rats, with the number unknown to the handler. There are always 8 tubes on course, with 1 to 5 being rats and the rest being litter tubes. The handler needs to decide based on the behavior of the dog when all the rats have been found, and let the judge know that they are Clear.

There is also a separate class called Crazy8s, which has 8 rats and 4 litter tubes on course with a 2 minute course time. This is a wild class as the dog has rat after rat to find, and the good hunters are flying around the course to find them all quickly.

While many people might think that the terriers, who were bred to be vermin hunters, would dominate this sport, there are many other breeds who have done extremely well. Herding breeds have shown a predilection for barn hunt, and Tervuren are no exception. Several of the most highly titled barn hunt Tervuren in the country live in the midwest, and Tervs have done very well at the annual National Barn Hunt competitions.

For more information, visit the Barn Hunt Association website at www.barnhunt.com.