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Within this chapter ‘sport dogs’ are defined as canines that are required to take part in a sporting activity at the behest of their human owners. These sport dogs are distinguished from the working dogs and leisured dogs who form the foci of Chapters 2 and 4 though the shifting boundaries between them are recognized. Sport dogs are animals used by humans in the leisure environment in a formal sporting event for recreational purposes and/or in search of a victory in an event. This chapter will look at the extent and nature of a variety of sporting activities where dogs play a prominent/dominant role and will look at changes in these sports across space and time. This analysis will be situated within discussions of changing social norms and values relating to the rights of animals in general and dogs in particular, including the use of representations of sport dogs as a means of constructing personal identity.

The range of sports in which dogs have taken and/or still take part is truly impressive and ranges from widely known sports to those that are best described as ‘fringe’ activities known by relatively few people beyond their active participants. In this way the range of dog sports is arguably very similar to that of sports in general. A list of sports in which dogs take part is provided in Table 3.1; while it may be desirable to say this is an exhaustive list such a claim is avoided due to the knowledge that new sports appear to be emerging frequently and that finding ‘every’ niche sport is difficult if not impossible. My publisher made a logical plea for ordering the material in Table 3.1, potentially differentiating between those sports that are still actively engaged in and those that have faded into history. The problem is that while the prominence of some of these sports may have changed and the nature of others has morphed over time it is very difficult to say with any certainty that any of the sports in Table 3.1 are confined to history. Consequently, beyond grouping the sports and providing brief details of those that are more obscure, I have ­resisted the temptation to structure the material in the table. Rather, examples of the difficulty associated with doing so are highlighted throughout this chapter.

Table 3.1. Dog sports.

Sport	Brief description
Bull-baiting	A bull is positioned to enable several dogs to attack it with the bull ultimately being killed
Badger baiting	Entails placing dogs in a badger’s burrow with the intention of seeing which is the first to kill the badger (Smith, 2011)
Other animals used in baiting with dogs include bears, otters, horses, mules, monkeys, wallabies, kangaroos, lions. Racoon and baboon baiting was also noted by Fox (1888)	References to these kinds of baiting can be found in Scott (1820), Strutt (1875), Fox (1888) and Ash (1934)
Ratting	Normally a case of seeing how many rats a dog can kill in a set time but, according to Fitz-Barnard (1975), there have been instances where dogs and humans have been pitted against one another to see which can kill more rats
Earthdog	‘Terriers run through a narrow tunnel in the ground that has wooden sides and ceiling and a dirt floor. At the end of the tunnel are caged rats, which the terriers must “work.” Working the prey may mean barking, growling or scratching at the cage’ (Mehus-Roes, 2009: 22). Mehus-Roes also mentions an emergent version of the sport called ‘strongdog’, which is for larger breeds and entails them dragging a stuffed badger skin out of the ground. These are ‘staged’ versions of the work to catch and kill vermin that was traditionally undertaken by terriers
Dog fights	Discussed in detail later in this chapter
Dog and man fights	‘a man fighting a bull-dog with his fists. Both combatants were attached to stakes by a chain’ (Fitz-Barnard, 1975: 191)
Hare hunting	On horseback, with the use of hounds
Otter hunting	Was focused on freshwater otters and used Otter Hounds (bred specifically for the task). There were approximately 20 packs of hounds used for the sport in Great Britain in the early 1900s (Cameron, 1908)
Conger eel hunting	Reportedly occurred in Normandy, France (Jesse, 1866a)
The lesser chase, la petite chasse	The following have all been hunted using dogs ‘the BADGER, MARTEN CAT, and SQUIRREL; the POLECAT and STOAT’ as well as the wildcat (Scott, 1820: 445)
Fox hunting	Undertaken on horseback with a pack of Foxhounds
Fox hunting with fell hounds	Undertaken on foot due to the steepness and unevenness of the terrain in the wilder regions of the UK (Drabble, 1989)
Beagling	The use of a pack of beagles to hunt for hares on foot (Longman, 1896)
Truffle hunting	Reference is made to truffle dogs in as early as 1866 by Jesse (1886a) and also by Stonehenge in 1875. Today, although a variety of breeds of dog appear to be used to sniff out this fungus, the Lagotto Romagnolo appears to be most closely associated with the activity
Private hare coursing	The chasing of hares by hounds for the private indulgence of the owner
Public hare coursing	The chasing of hares by hounds in a public setting in which betting is a central feature. It is a more recent form of coursing than the private version
Enclosed public hare coursing	Differentiated from public hare coursing in that the activity takes place in a fenced-in area. The popularity of the sport was short-lived in the late 1800s in the UK (Ash, 1935)
Coyote coursing	A sport undertaken with the people on horseback or in cars (Almirall, undated)
Other animals used in coursing include rabbits, deer, wallabies and kangaroos	In all coursing the hound, rather than its human owner, is the killer of the prey (Salmon, 1977)
Lure coursing	Like live coursing, lure coursing is undertaken outside of arenas such as those used for Greyhound racing but a lure is used as a replacement for a live animal (Mehus-Roes, 2009)
Greyhound racing	In Greyhound racing the live hare of coursing is replaced by a mechanical lure. The sport emerged out of America, where the first track was opened in 1921 (National Greyhound Racing Club and Genders, 1990)
Greyhound hurdling	Never as popular a sport as Greyhound racing but undertaken at the same venues
Whippet racing	The racing of Whippets is only undertaken on an amateur basis
Afghan racing	Differs from Greyhound racing in that it is an amateur sport without any formal betting industry involvement
Dog sledding	Involves the pulling of a sled by a number of dogs (the specific number varies across different races) guided by a ‘musher’. Racing occurs over a range of distances including the ultra-long iconic events that are examined later in this chapter
Skijoring	‘a driver on a pair of skis is pulled by a team of one, two, or three dogs’ (Flanders, 1989: 96). It is in effect a combination of cross-country skiing and dog sledding (Mehus-Roes, 2009)
Pulka racing	A low-profile sled (pulka) is pulled by a dog or dogs with musher skiing behind attached by a long bungee (Hood, 1996)
Lead-dog contests	A test of gee/haw skills used in dog sledding by requiring ‘dogs to negotiate a set course successfully’ (Hood, 1996: 384)
Stampede/scramble races	Dog mushers begin the race lying in a sleeping bag, must then pack sled, harness team, then go (Hood, 1996)
Weight pulling	Dogs pull sleds or carts on wheels or tracks onto which weights are incrementally placed. As with human weightlifting, dogs are categorized by size to allow all dogs to compete (Hood, 1996; Mehus-Roes, 2009)
Gig racing (also known as dryland mushing)	Three- or four-wheeled carts raced with sled dogs where there is a lack of snow (Hood, 1996; Sled Dog Association of Scotland, 2007b).
Scootering	One or more dogs pull a two-wheeled scooter with a musher on it (Sled Dog Association of Scotland, 2007b).
Bikejoring	One or more dogs pull the musher on a bike (Sled Dog Association of Scotland, 2007b).
Carting (drafting/driving)	Often undertaken as a non-competitive leisure activity but also undertaken as a sport (Mehus-Roes, 2009)
Canicross	Cross-country running while hitched to a single dog (Sled Dog Association of Scotland, 2007b; Steele, 2007).
Field trials/gun dog trials	Events that focus on the demonstration of the required traits for specific types of dogs depending on what role they have been traditionally bred to fulfil
Sheepdog trials/herding	The former is focused on the herding of sheep while the latter can include other animals such as cattle and ducks (Mehus-Roes, 2009)
Schutzhund	A form of dog trial to test protection dog traits (Mehus-Roes, 2009). It is basically the same as ring sport (Gillespie et al., 2002)
Police dog trials	A spectator event
Water rescue	‘Dogs are tested on their ability to save multiple victims, take a boat line from one boat to another, tow a drifting boat to shore, and rescue an unconscious victim from under a capsized boat’ (Mehus-Roes, 2009: 27)
Tracking	Focuses on the following of a predetermined scent trail (Mehus-Roes, 2009). It is the basis of search and rescue dogs’ work (American Kennel Club, 2012b)
Dog agility	Dogs must run through an obstacle course as quickly and with as few faults as possible (Mehus-Roes, 2009)
Flyball	Involves a team of four dogs and handlers, with the dogs running a fixed length, catching a ball that they cause to pop out of a box and returning with it to their handler (Mehus-Roes, 2009)
Obedience	Is defined as: ‘A natural extension of basic dog training’ but one that goes well beyond the level of obedience training associated with the average pet dog (Mehus-Roes, 2009: 24)
Rally	‘Dogs follow a course with a number of stations; at each one is an instruction to perform a specific [obedience] command’ (Mehus-Roes, 2009: 25)
Canine freestyle/dog dancing/ heelwork to music	‘Dogs and their handlers perform choreographed routines in time to music, sometimes with props and costumes’ (Mehus-Roes, 2009: 19). There are an estimated 90 clubs in the UK offering dog dancing activities (Copping, 2012)
Disc dog	Involves the throwing of a disc by the handler and catching of it by a dog. The sport incorporates two events: distance and accuracy, and freestyle, with the former being self-explanatory and the latter involving choreographed movements set to music (Mehus-Roes, 2009)
Dock jumping	Focused on measuring the distance a dog can jump into water (Mehus-Roes, 2009)
Dog show	Discussed in detail later in this chapter

While a case could be made for a detailed analysis of all the sports listed in Table 3.1 such an undertaking is beyond the limits of this book (it would represent at least one book in its own right and probably more). Rather, this chapter will be selective in the dog sports it discusses, seeking to use them as exemplars of how dogs are used in sport and viewed by their human owners and the spectators of the sports.

The nature of the sports in which dogs take part, just like any other sport, are subject to change over time in response to changing circumstances that lie outside of the control of these sports. Changes in the economic climate, societal views about the rights and welfare of animals, land ownership rules and regulations, and the development of new leisure experiences have arguably all played a role in changing the nature of sport dogs over time. Illustrations of this will be provided in the following sections, demonstrating how and why blood sports and dog shows have risen and fallen in popularity and changed both the sports and the dogs in the process.