Lunchtime events

6th July, Paragility-show and dog dancing

Agility is a kind of sport in which a dog is involved and where both pet and owner must work hard to gain success. What attracts a lot of people to take up this sport is its manifoldness, since no identical exercises are to be done during a competition. An auspicious competitor must know exactly what is going on in the dog’s mind and must be able to draw precise conclusions about his/her dog’s body language in order to forsee how it will react in different situations. It is essential that the dog should trust its handler and the handler should consider the dog as a partner rather than a manageable machine. With the majority of sports done with dogs, the physical condition of the owner is not relevant. In the case of agility, however, it is of great importance. A good competitor must also pay attention to his/her mental fitness, since he/she must give meticulous commands at a number of obstacles in moments of time. During the demonstration you will see another, more challenging version of the sport, requiring perfect harmony, congruous cooperation and a lot of training both on the part of the dog and the handicapped in order to achieve triumph.
Dog dancing is a recently emerged branch of sports dating back to about 10 years of history. It focuses mostly on obedience training exercises combined with spectacular elements of motion similar to that of freestyle heeling and is performed on music. The accomplishment requires concentration of great intensity and harmonious collaboration of dog and man alike. The performance can only exude harmony if the partners are both devoted. Dog dancing, being spectacular and jubilant with the employment of a great variety of tricks, has become very popular both with the professional and non-professional audience.
In our demonstration one of the most successful Hungarian dogdancing duo Kata Kerényi and her border collie, is going to perform a coure. They have proved to be a masterly pair not only in Hungarian but also in international competitions.

7th July, Policemen at work

In recent years the work of the police has been assisted with drug sniffing dogs in the battle against the commerce of drugs. A perfect drug sniffing dog is intelligent, self-confident, very determined, extremely interested in retrieval and is in an excellent physical condition. Its task is to find drugs hidden in flats, cars or in any other places, occasionally even under the ground.
In police major Suszter Ferenc’s presentation the audience will get familiar with the way future drug sniffing dogs are selected and trained as well as with how the dogs work in Hungary.

8th July, Meet the wolves of our times!

The demonstration lead by members of our Ethology Department and the Horatius Animal Coordination team will show differences between the wolf and the dog in lifelike situations, well-known from the literature. Although these wolves participating in the demonstration are hand-raised and have been in contact with humans all through their lives, the behavioural differences are still evident. After the presentation the venturesome visitors can get in touch with the wolf.

9th July, An afternoon for herding

(NOTE: Pre-registration and payment is necessary for this program, price: EUR 25)

The presentation will take place on a farm close to Budapest which still preserves some of the atmosphere of the authentic Hungarian countryside. Here 30 sheep are available for dog and owner taking up the more and more popular sport, hobby herding. All the year round, the farm provides the scene for a number of interbreed herding competitions, instinct-trials and English-style challenges.
During the lecture by József Árkosi combined with a demonstration, the audience can see the traditional Hungarian herding dogs (Puli, Pumi, Mudi) in action. Their working style can be compared with the way the well known English herding dogs (Border collie, Australian kelpie) do their job. Besides that, the visitors can also get familiar with our sheep dogs (Komondor, Kuvasz) and some of the Hungarian hounds (Hungarian greyhound, Hungarian deerhound/pointer). The programme filling the whole afternoon will be finished with a supper made in bogrács (a traditional Hungarian pot) in the open air.