Di Ellis asked:


I was just watching the Olympics on TV last night with my dog, Hamish, curled up on the sofa beside me, when he let out one of his famous triple snorts. I had a chuckle, and thought to myself – this dog could snort for Australia!

Which led me on to thinking, what if we had a doggie Olympics?

I am sure I could enter Hamish for the Snorting competition – he’d get extra points for degree of difficulty, combination (a triple!), and volume (he’s a tiny dog, but you’d never know it by the noises he makes when he sleeps).

I think he’d also give them a run for their money in the Toy Retrieval competition, though I think we might lose points if he actually had to let the toy go once he brought it back to me (we usually wrestle for it).

My previous dog, Bruno, would have been very competitive in the Finding Hidden Treats time trial – that dog could sniff out a crumb of cake behind the sofa cushions at 10 feet.

And my sister’s dog, Remus, would have been the favourite in for the Cleaning Your Food Bowl competition. By the time he finishes cleaning his bowl, you could eat from it yourself!

And we could have entered the mud sledding competition – I’m sure we would have won that! (I need to explain – Bruno and Remus were bull terrier crosses – very powerful chests – and we live on 30 acres of rainforest. I foolishly took them both for a walk one day – at the same time – straight after we had some really heavy rain. Now I only weigh 50Kg, and those dogs together outweighed me, so when a kangaroo darted in front of us it was no competition – I was sliding through the mud hanging on to those two leashes for dear life! I eventually managed to stop them, and me, by sitting down in the mud and digging my heels in as they continued to drag me along. I never did that again ….).

Now, things we wouldn’t win. Being bullies, neither Bruno nor Remus could jump very high, and they weighed a lot, so we wouldn’t have entered the Jumping Into Your Owners Arms From a Standing Start competition. Nor the Smiling Sweetly While Other Dogs Go By competition.

And Hamish is a shocker at catching treats you throw, so we won’t enter him in the Treat Catching.

And my cousin’s dog, Lily, is a little neurotic, so she wouldn’t do very well in the Sitting Still While Your Owner Calls You competition.

I think it would be great to have an Olympics for ordinary dogs – not those fancy show offs who can do agility training and retrieval, just one for all the mutts! We’d let them show off their natural dog skills, like finding food, and playing, and showing us affection.

Our dogs are all champions in their own little way – you just need to think up the right competition for your dog! So, what would your dog win?