The Bunny Stick Game

¶    Dogs frantic with excitement and enthusiasm

¶    Amazing athleticism on display

¶    A day spent outside in the fresh air

¶    Easy camaraderie with friends and fellow competitors

What’s not to love about lure coursing?!?

Lure coursing is such a great sport for Pharaoh Hounds.  With their keen prey drive, wonderful agility, and great speed, they're naturals at this game.  And they LOVE it.  It's also a nice way to test the hunting instinct and athleticism of your Pharaoh Hound without actual hunting.  No rabbits will be harmed in the course of this sport !  Even though you could probably show up at a lure trial and have a good chance that your Pharaoh Hound will instinctively play this "game" correctly, I feel that an incremental training process is the best way to foster this instinct and produce a safe, lifelong lure courser.  Throughout this, I’ll use the term puppy but it works equally well with an adult.

The training will begin at home.  The chase instinct is most reliably strengthened with frequent, short sessions.  First, you will work with something called a “bunny stick.”  You begin with a long stick of some sort – a fishing pole, lightweight strong stick, or the base of a braided coach-type whip.  Tie a ~6 foot line (fishing line is strong and lightweight) onto the end of the stick.  Then, tie a lure onto the end of the line.  For the best success, you should start with some sort of skin as a lure.  Many leather or craft stores sell tanned rabbit skins.  Cut strips of the skin and attach to the line.

Go to a secure area for your training – it doesn’t need to be big for this beginning step; most backyards are fine.  Get your puppy’s interest and move the lure in a circle (with you in the middle like a horse’s lunge line), on the ground, encouraging your puppy to chase it.  Keep the lure on the ground; no fair flipping it up in the air over the puppy's head or making quick direction changes.  Use your happy voice!  After a few circles, let the puppy catch it.  Wow!  Yay!  What a good dog!  Lots of happy praise.  Even better if the puppy “kills” the lure with a quick shake of the head.  Repeat this three or four times, then put the pole away.  Always stop while enthusiasm remains high.  This is not exercise time; this is encouraging the chase instinct training!

After you have enthusiasm with strips of rabbit skin, start adding strips of white plastic bag.  The eventual lure at lure trials will be white plastic bags, so you want to slowly move from strips of rabbit skin, to strips of mixed rabbit skin and plastic bags, to plastic bags alone. 

I must stress that this is lighthearted play.  You do not want to tire your puppy or cause undue stress on growing joints.  Literally two or three minutes of this type of play is enough to encourage chase instinct.  You want to encourage lifelong, healthy lure coursing and that means protecting young joints from overuse.  Speak with your breeder about age issues.  If you have one of the heavier, larger Sighthounds, you shouldn’t even do bunny stick work until they are approaching a year old or older.

Another item to practice at this time is a solid recall.  Your Pharaoh Hound will run in a lure course without collars; wearing only colored coursing jackets so the judges can score their runs.  This means, at the end of each practice or course, your dog must allow himself to be secured.  A dog that runs away or plays games and won’t be caught delays the entire event (you can’t begin the next course until the dogs from the previous course are secured) and could also lose points from their run through delay of course penalties.

When you feel your Pharaoh Hound puppy is enthusiastically chasing the lure and going in to catch it with great gusto, then it’s time to look for some practice chasing the lure in short, straight chases.  My lure coursing club, Cascade Coursing Club, has practices throughout the year.  If you are in the Seattle area, you might enjoy coming to one of our practices. 

Special thanks to my boy, 16-week-old Rooney, for being