Canine Freestyle and DogDancing

[bipa]

There’s a new sport you might not have heard about or seen yet. It is called Canine Freestyle, and is rapidly gaining in popularity. My dog club has recently started classes in dog dancing, a simpler and easier version of the sport, and they are a big hit with owners who are looking for new ways to have fun with dogs.

This web site shows videos from various competitions and shows in Europe. I’m sure you’ll not only be amazed, but will get a whole bunch of ideas about new tricks to train. (If you have trouble with slow servers, many of the videos are also available on youtube)


Dog Dancing isn’t just in Europe. Until their retirement, Carolyn Scott and her golden retriever, Rookie, were acknowledged Canine Freestyle champions. Hard to belive she was stricken with polio as a child. See for yourself how terrific she is with Rookie:

[media]

[media]

They also appeared on Animal Planet.

Enjoy!

 

[mopar53190]

I have seen this in the United States a long time ago. I do not follow dog shows / competitions very closely and do not remember if it was a competition or exibition. I do know it has never been really popular here though. I do find this a very good unique bonding excercise, Thanks for sharing.

 

[szecsuani]

I want to do canine freestyle with my dog!:dogbiggrin:
In Hungary, canine freestyle and dog dancing are the same...
I hope that we can go to our first competition in May, but we have to practice a lot...
http://www.freeweb.hu/dogdancing/englishversion/englishindex.htm
This is a hungarian site, some stuff can be found here in english, but Dance School is not translated to english. If you find something that is intresting for you, but it is in hunrarian, I can translate it to you.
And I have posted this link before, but if you don't mind, I post it here again. This is Nora Karlyik, a hungarian "dog dancer" with her bearded collie Sherlock. The have won every competition in hungary, and they achieved really god scores in European competitions.
http://www.youtube.com/user/k9freestyler
And here's another site with her videos:
http://www.vimeo.com/307840

 

[bigboytex]

Hey thats pretty cool I had seen some stuff about this before but nerver really though about it after that becuse I didnt know that it was that popular but its still pretty cool.

 

[l_l_a]

I've seen a few demonstrations at exhibitions, it is so impressive! it is such a joy to see the dogs and handlers working so cooperatively and enjoying every minute of it! I often see announcements for beginning freestyle classes. In addition to training the dog to perform those moves, do they also teach the humans to dance? I'm not much of a dancer myself (you would keel over laughing if you saw me dancing!) so I've not thought to get involved in this sport...hehe!!

 

[szecsuani]

The handler doesn't really need to dance, only a few moves everybody can do.
If the handler had to dance, I wouldn't do this sport.:msngiggle: