Interview: The story of falling in love with Lure Coursing

I am very excited to continue with the Lure Coursing topic, moreover, this is the very first harvoola’s interview with Jurga who is not only a great enthusiast of Lure Coursing, passionate about Italian Greyhounds, the owner of Podenco Ibicenco kennel & the owner of exclusive dog gear Baltas Vėjas but most importantly, our dear friend <3

I’m glad Jurga has agreed to share her story about discovering Lure Coursing. All the answers here, for you, folks!

- Jurga, how did you find out about LC, how did you start?

- We got hooked on Coursing when the first qualification run and competition was organized in Lithuania. It happened back in 2014. After trying LC there, we were in!

- Whoa, so it’s 6 years already! But why? What’s so good about Lure Coursing?

- I’d say that there are two main reasons why our family fell in love with this sport. First of all – our dogs simply adore chasing the prey. It’s impossible to put in words this feeling when you see your beloved dog being full of energy, with sparkling eyes, living the moment to the fullest.

The second thing is all the friends we made during the years. It is always a pleasure to meet during the training & competition, spend the whole day watching the dogs compete, have some BBQ together and then spending the long summer nights at the campfire simply chatting until the sunrise.

- Oooh, this sounds inspiring! If you needed to name the best memory from Lure Coursing, what would that be?

- It happened during the very first year when competition was organized here in Lithuania. Our first Podenco Kia has won the title of a Field Winner! (a note: during every competition, one dog is selected as a Field Winner despite the breed). It was amazing!

The next year we decided to participate in the European Championship of Lure Coursing that happened in Slovakia.

Kia was not in her best shape, she had given birth a few months prior to this, so we participated just out of curiosity. We wanted to see how it all works in huge championship, and spend some quality time with the family in the nature (such amazing mountains they have there!).

But when the award ceremony started, we heard her name announced out loud and we all just… Froze! We got on a stand with Kia!! It was totally unexpected, considering her shape and that back then we had no clue about lure Coursing as such J

I think our girl simply had a loooot of energy and full package of needed features to win!

- Congratulations! I understand that back then you didn’t train you dogs for LC in any specific way. Do you do that now?

- Yes, I do train them by using a specific jogging track as well as riding a bicycle with them by my side. 

- Honestly, I think you sold this activity to our readers already. To conclude this, tell us, what‘s important to know when starting off with LC?

The most important to get & succeed in this sport is dog’s strong instinct to chase the prey. If your dog is not interested in hunting, it’s barely possible to make this activity fun for him. There is always an option to strengthen the instinct by doing some training at home – playing and pulling a toy or a plastic bag. In that way a puppy with a weak hunting instinct might develop it.

Of course, there are quite some sighthounds that don’t have this instinct & interest at all. In this case, training will not help here... But you can always be there in a crowd cheering for you friends!

 - Thank you, Jurga, for sharing your story!

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If you hadn't checked Harvey's, the Italian Greyhound's, story with Lure Coursing, follow the link!

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