What Are Dog Olympics and Does Your Dog Have What It Takes?

Here at Zen Frenz, we compete to be the best pet wellness company. And with the Olympics currently going on we’ve become completely obsessed and blown away by the athletes and competitions. We just wish we could see what our feline friends could do on a national stage! However, there are dog competitions and olympics that go on regionally. We wish every pup the best on their quest for the gold medal! 

Are There Dog Olympics?

While there is not one massive worldwide dog Olympics event where countries compete against each other, several smaller events are held around the world each year. Most of these events are organized to raise money for a variety of dog-related charities or rescue groups. As well as being a fun family day out, dog Olympics provides an excellent opportunity for your dog to show off their skills and provides socialization opportunities for your well-behaved dog.

What Are Dog Olympics Events?

There are many types of competitive dog events you can enter your dog. Some of the most popular include:

• Herding Trials or Sheepdog Trials

Trials are events where dogs move a group of animals (usually sheep) from one area in a field to another area under instruction by their owner. The difficulty with this is that there are obstacles in the way that the dog and sheep have to negotiate either around, over, or through. These obstacles are things like bridges, around gates, or enclosures.

• Dog Frisbee or Disc Dog

In disc dog competitions, dogs compete in teams of two (one human and one dog) in distance catching and freestyle catching events. Distance catching is essentially a toss and fetch event with points being awarded for the distances reached. Freestyle, however, is quite different. Freestyle is where teams show off their short choreographed routine to impress both the judges and the crowd.

• Agility

Dog agility is where a handler guides their dog through an obstacle course. These events are scored on both the length of time taken to complete the course and how accurately the dog navigated it. Handlers cannot use any incentives to guide their dog and only do so using body signals or their voice.

• Tracking

In tracking events, dogs get to use their most powerful tool, their sense of smell. Here dogs have to navigate a scent trail to locate a ‘missing’ item or person; primarily, the trail becomes a search and rescue event for the dog. In the beginning, scent trails are usually up to 500 yards long and are laid between 30 minutes and two hours before the dog starts. For the more accomplished dogs, they can compete on trails that are up to double this length and where the scent path was laid for up to five hours before the start. 

• Dog Olympics

Dog Olympics is primarily a competitive sporting event where your dog competes in a range of athletic and non-athletic activities. The type of events involved varies widely between each dog Olympics games and can include limbo, howling contest, frisbee toss, high jump, best trick, longest tail, and longest stay.

We hope one day we can see the best pups from each country compete, but until then we will have to wait. If you choose to let your pup compete, then we’d love to sponsor anyone with our Zen Frenz brand. We can help with our new Zen Frenz Healing Balm that helps with paws after all that trotting and running! Or we can help with our Zen Frenz Shampoo for a shiny new coat. And if your pup has stage fright, then try some Zen Drops before. Happy Games!

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