Lure Coursing

I am interested in trying this with my lurcher, i think she'd be great. Does anyone know of anywhere in Kent or nearby where i can take her ? any info would be gratefully received, thanks.

Its great fun (if a little worrying) watching your dog chase the lure.

Has your lurcher ever had a trial behind a lure?? Would you beleive some pointy faces won't chase a plastic bag on a line??

How old is your lurcher and does he/she have a strong prey drive?

In their early days I trialed and began to straight and bend race mine but due to illness and injury I didn't carry on with it.

There is at times a certain element of danger for the dogs when lure coursing, mainly bone breakages or injury from the line itself.

I can give you breed specific forum details if you wish, you will get a better response from the with details of clubs, area etc.

Buy the Countrymans Weekly Newspaper, and look for the Lurcher and Terrier shows in there. Many have straight racing or coursing at their events.

Thanks for the replies ... Helen - don't know much about her background, have only had her 4 months as rescue, she was a stray from Ireland. She is keener than my greyhound who is an ex racer, she will chase anything given the chance ! i think she would be good - i suspect she may have been used for coursing previously. I have the Lure Coursing Association website details, could i find out from there ? not sure what i have to do but would she have to trial beforehand ? - sorry for all the questions !

Usually lurchers/greys/whippets that originate from Ireland have been used for work/racing/coursing so its possible she's done something like that.

You could contact them but most lure coursing is done by whippet clubs and they sometimes open it up to other breeds or cross breeds. There are some lurcher clubs about but not as many as the whippet clubs. Some non pedigree whippet clubs let lurchers run but they like the to look whippet like!!

Yes racing of lurchers is done at game fairs as been suggested but they are usually set races made up of srtaight/bends and sometime hurdles and they are very competitive and often not open to newbies with dogs that haven't yet run or are very new to it.

You could give the lure couring assoc. a try they might be able to give you some advise.

I'd say yes to trialing, if not for the dog but for you too, hand slipping isn't as easy as it sounds as its all down to timing and if they are set from traps then they have to get used to going in them and learning to run from them and not all dogs like being in the traps.

You'd think letting a running dog run would be easy but with this kind of thing its all taken very seriuosly at times, the compition can run high and then theres the safety of the dogs to think of too.

Thanks for your advice, i will look into the Lure Coursing Association, cheers x