Story and photo by Kyle August, Reporter<\/p>\n
Austin is home to runners and dog lovers alike. Combine the two and you get RuffTail Runners\u2014 a program that inspires Austinites to take shelter dogs out of their kennels and onto the trails for exercise and exposure.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were a lot more benefits than we realized,\u201d Rob Hill co-founder of RuffTail Runners said.<\/p>\n
The runners act as extra trainers, and the vast majority of the dogs are well behaved as a result.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Each month, Ruff-Tail Runners holds training sessions to teach volunteers how to properly handle the dogs. Group sessions are fairly small, and include both classroom and hands-on training.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we try to do is keep the runners, dogs, and public [on the trails] safe\u201d, Hill said. \u201cWe average about 300 runs a month. All these runs, we\u2019ve had virtually no dog fights\u201d.<\/p>\n
Running with the dogs is not a requirement. Many participants walk the dogs.<\/p>\n
Hill has no statistics on the program\u2019s effects on dog adoption rates, however he said that getting the dogs away from the stressful shelter environment results in happier, healthier, pets.<\/p>\n
The program also allows people to spend time with the dogs without the full-time commitment of ownership.<\/p>\n
Before each run, dogs are fitted with bright vests that read, \u201cAdopt Me!\u201d Hill, a native Austinite, has two adopted pets of his own\u2014 adogandacat.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a magnet for strays!\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
RuffTail Runners is open to the public at the Austin Pets Alive! Town Lake facility at 1156 W Cesar Chavez.<\/p>\n
For more information, visit www. meetup.com\/rufftail- runnersaustin.<\/p>\n
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Story and photo by Kyle August, Reporter Austin is home to runners and dog lovers alike. Combine the two and you get RuffTail Runners\u2014 a program that inspires Austinites to take shelter dogs out of their kennels and onto the trails for exercise and exposure. \u201cThere were a lot more benefits than we realized,\u201d Rob […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4015,"featured_media":2945,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[100,364,514,598],"class_list":["post-2932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-austin-community-college","tag-kyle-august","tag-rufftail-runnersaustin-com","tag-the-accent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4015"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/accent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}