I recently paid a visit to a very nice hobby shop in town to buy Xmas gifts. I walked by the remote controlled cars. The $400+ cars were of great interest to me.
One of my favorite things to do with/for a dog is to come up with new toy type things to give it mental and physical exercise....and to combat boredom while I'm away and so on.
Well, I talked to the salesman about this remote controlled car...and he demonstrated it's durability by throwing it around...and it goes 40mph over rough surfaces.
You can imagine what I was thinking: take that plastic truck body off this truck, put some sort of rag or dog toy on it, and send the dog on a mad chase....and what fun it would be to drive this rabbit around field! If you've got a herding dog, perhaps the dog could heard this thing back to ya.
I actually controlled the 'bunnie' at a Greyhound research track...but that set up would be WAY to expensive!
Anyway, this idea has never occured to me before...maybe it could be the start of a great business idea. Remote controlled bunnies for active dogs!
Anyone considered this sort of thing for their dog?....what are the ups and downs of this idea?

 Quote:

I recently paid a visit to a very nice hobby shop in town to buy Xmas gifts. I walked by the remote controlled cars. The $400+ cars were of great interest to me.
One of my favorite things to do with/for a dog is to come up with new toy type things to give it mental and physical exercise....and to combat boredom while I'm away and so on.
Well, I talked to the salesman about this remote controlled car...and he demonstrated it's durability by throwing it around...and it goes 40mph over rough surfaces.
You can imagine what I was thinking: take that plastic truck body off this truck, put some sort of rag or dog toy on it, and send the dog on a mad chase....and what fun it would be to drive this rabbit around field! If you've got a herding dog, perhaps the dog could heard this thing back to ya.
I actually controlled the 'bunnie' at a Greyhound research track...but that set up would be WAY to expensive!
Anyway, this idea has never occured to me before...maybe it could be the start of a great business idea. Remote controlled bunnies for active dogs!
Anyone considered this sort of thing for their dog?....what are the ups and downs of this idea?

I have a gas powered monster truck that is a beast. The tires sit a little higher than a normal beer can. Anyhow, I thought about it but decided not to. Foir a few reasons. Those things are tinker toys. And little parts can be expensive to fix.

OK, if my dog got ahold of that "fake animal fur" on my truck he'd bite it and jack my truck up. Or he could get burned or the fur or whatever material would get burned too. LIke on the header or something like that. If anyhting I'd get a cheapo radio shack one that is fast and about half the price, charge up some batteryies, and let a rip. No major heat.

I've thought about it, but not done it yet. My design had the toy/lure on a little tow line behind the RC car, so if it was caught they wouldn't be chewing on the car itself. When I took my greyhound lure coursing, they made a big deal of making sure each dog got to "kill" the lure at the end of the run.

The major issue with picking an RC car would be acceleration as well as durability. Greyhounds can go 0-30 MPH in about 3 strides.

My son used to have a R/C Hummer.

I say used to, because Danke, aka el Dangerous, has claimed it as hers.
If she is anywhere around when the Hummer comes out, she goes ballistic.

She does a fabulous revere on the stupid thing, and if it moves, she grabs it by the oversized wheels and drags it around in a very nice carry. Occassionally she gives it a nice little prey shake, which typically sends it flying.

Thankfully it's quite durable, and so far has survived her abuse with minimal damage.

Once she eventually does destroy this one, I'll get her one of the toy cars designed for toddlers, which are slightly slower, but much more durable, rounder with less protruding edges, etc.

She also likes to chase these up and down the hallway:
http://www.fisher-price.com/fp.aspx?st=10&e=snglanding

I have seen it done with a pair of whippets. They used velcro and attatched a terry cloth tail. They'd hold the dogs back get the RC going on a sand surface at a fair distance and then let the dogs go.

I never saw anything go wrong with this since the dogs were after the terry cloth and not the car.

My hubby looked into this, and found a nitro powered RC car that can do 0-60 in 4 seconds. A bit too pricey for me. I need some decent land, and try it out with a cheaper car first. Last thing I want is for the dog to decide it's scary and not chase it after spending that kind of money.

The St Louis zoo does Cheeta coursing using a series of pullies with a rag tied to a cable. The cable is hooked to a reel which is then wound up by an electric motor.
If you wanted to do this (with your dog or your Cheeta) you could move the pullies to different locations to vary the path of the lure.

The eqipment you're talking about is the same used for lure coursing. Lure coursing is a fun sport for sight hounds. I took my dog once and he LOVED it. Some clubs will even hold all breed trials. You can purchase your own equipment if you want. Just google "lure coursing equipment". Here are a couple:

http://www.injoy-1.com/packages.htm

http://www.maplecreekracing.com/

 Quote: shody lytle

http://www.injoy-1.com/packages.htm

They have the "The STD Lure Machine"!!!!

Who named that thing????

I guess if you've been around the track a few times....