Every Thursday, in its “off-field” section, “20 Minutes” explores new spaces for the expression of sport, unexpected, unusual, clever or booming.
Today, let's discover the canicross and its cousin the caniVTT, which involves a great bond between the master or mistress and his dog.
These disciplines are accessible to all humans and (almost) all dogs if we stick to the leisure level.
For more than 30,000 years, humans and dogs have made common cause. Hunting, surveillance of livestock, stalking drugs… The tasks assigned by
Homo sapiens sapiens
to
Canis lupus familiaris
are innumerable. Canicross and caniVTT are among the latest avatars of this fruitful bond. “You have to practice to understand. With the dog, we are fusional ”, assures Anne Fulleringer, French benchmark of caniVTT, titled at European and world level.
A bike, a lanyard with shock absorber to protect the animal's back, a traction harness adapted to its size and it rolls.
Quickly.
"With Tails, one of my four bitches, we do an average of 33 or 35 km / h on races of 6 km, with peaks of 50 km / h downhill", specifies the 38-year-old Ardéchoise, who works in nuclear power when she is not skimming competitions.
A world champion at the Cruas-Meysse plant 🤩: Anne Fulleringer, employee in the risk prevention department, won the #CaniVTT world championship last October 🏆🚴🏻♀️🐕 pic.twitter.com/VQ2HRLQnQS
- EDF Cruas-Meysse (@EDFCruasMeysse) November 30, 2018
So it rolls, or it trots, since it is no longer rare to meet a jogger or a jogger connected by a leash to his dog.
“The bond is indescribable, confirms Yvon Lasbleiz, 68 years old and former marathoner.
When we do canicross, we fly.
When your stride is adapted to that of the dog, that's great.
He will give everything for you, he will not let go.
"
Several federations for the same bone
The 60-year-old Paimpolais co-founded in 2006 the Federation of Canine Sports and Recreation (FSLC), which he still chairs. “In the 1980s, a Lyon veterinarian, Gilles Pernoud, learned about ski joering practiced in the Nordic countries,” continues the Breton. He was inspired by it and launched a circuit in France, which has long remained fairly confidential. "Canicross and derivatives really took off in the 2010s, and" now it's exploding, "says Yvon Lasbleiz.
Before going any further, a little institutional point. The FSLC, which does only in the “monochien”, as its leader reminds us, occupies a very important place in the small world of dog sports and recreation. But it is not "the approved and delegated federation", specifies Frédéric Borgey. This 56-year-old resident of Drôme presides over the French Federation of Sled Sports (FFST), born in 1987 and which received a white leg from the State at the start of the following decade.
"We cover a very, very broad spectrum, from canicrossers with a dog to the long-distance team that goes to Alaska," confides this former member of the French sled sports team.
We establish the regulations, we select the French teams, we can organize the European and world championships in our country, we intervene in the training of professionals.
We already have 30 years of experience as a structured federation.
While the FSLC was born with the advent of canicross and caniVTT.
"
Accessible to almost all dogs
The bickering sometimes turns into a misunderstanding, for example to know who has the right to proclaim himself world champion. But it does not matter for the basic practitioner, anxious to go stretch legs and paws with his dog. But with which race, by the way? Almost all of them. Category 1 (staff, pitbull, etc.) is prohibited and “crushed noses” (pug, bulldog, etc.) which, on exertion, can roar like an A320 engine, not really recommended. While it can be a charming companion, the chihuahua is sorely lacking in power.
But small dogs still have a say in the hobby.
“I had a hyperactive Jack Russell and I was looking for an activity to let off steam,” recalls Anne Fulleringer, who in the mid-2000s left the riding world for another, much more confidential one.
I discovered canicross on the Internet.
And it is by participating in races that I saw departures in caniMBT.
I did not even know that it existed.
In canicross, we will look for a dog that is above all powerful, while in caniVTT, it will have to be faster.
"
Greyster and ESD, dogs "made" for canicross and caniVTT
Today, the champion runs a “stable” of four bitches: a 13-year-old husky withdrawn from the circuit and three Greysters. This cross between Greyhound and German Shorthaired Pointer has been specially "worked" for the discipline. Yvon Lasbleiz is the proud owner of two ESDs (European Sled Dogs), a tonic cocktail of pointer, greyhound, pointer and Nordic breed (husky or malamute). "He's a very profiled dog, he's Formula 1," smiles the sixty-year-old, who for several years has abandoned canicross for caniVTT.
Whether connected to an “F1” or to a “karting”, the practice is developing, to the point of creating dedicated shelves, with leashes and harnesses, in sporting goods stores.
On the reality of the current expansion, slowed down but not blocked by the pandemic which has frozen the race calendar for more than a year, the two Federations agree.
For the numbers, that's another story ...
Figures and beings
The FFST, approved and linked to the sports ministry, displays “a little more than 1,000 licensees” in all the disciplines it covers. The FSLC announces "3,100 licensees per year in 2019 and more than 20,000 registrations per year for more than a hundred events that we organize, with 54% of women". "They integrate people who do nothing but leisure," points out Frédéric Borgey, the boss of the FFST. We do not forget the CNEAC, an offshoot of the Centrale canine, which organizes a French Grand Prix every year and claims on its site “1,000 licenses per year without counting the day licenses [+ 1,000]”.
“We cannot regulate occasional practice,” continues Frédéric Borgey.
But we are vigilant about the equipment, the mileage, the nature of the soils, the training methods, the calculation of temperatures, humidity and elevation ... "Whatever the Fed, the races are very codified, with a minimum age for dogs (12 months for canicross, 18 months for caniVTT), a distance generally included from 1 (for children) to 9 km, on "soft" soils because the road tar will injure or even burn animal pads.
Too high a temperature can lead to the cancellation of a race.
The canitrail and the canitrottinette point the tip of their nose
"The dog does not sweat, he gasps," recalls Frédéric Borgey.
“After 25 ° C, a competition does not take place, says Yvon Lasbleiz.
And when we approach it, we move it to morning or evening.
»Still embryonic, the canitrail (up to 20 km) and the canitrottinette point the tip of their nose, next to the canimarche or the canirando, ideal for owners who are not very athletic and dogs whose coat is whitening.
To train your animal, educators are available in clubs all over the territory.
Distrust, all the same, according to Frédéric Borgey: “Canine educators sell canicross.
If they know how to educate a dog very well, they do not necessarily know how to make a human play sports.
"
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