Patch the Dalmatian

Patch the Dalmatian I’m an outdoor loving, water seeking athlete and roadtripper on a constant adventure aith my mom.

me: hey patch, since you like lying around outside in 20-something weather, wanna go trot like a turkey in the park?patc...
11/29/2025

me: hey patch, since you like lying around outside in 20-something weather, wanna go trot like a turkey in the park?

patch: why yes, of course! but i should warn you— while i’ve finished my poopies, i do still plan to respond to all of my messages along the path since we haven’t been here in over a week ✨😌⚡️

all hail the king of mid-race marking! 👑😒

actually though, it was a really fun run, once we got past all of the people in our way! we weren’t running for time but i’m v happy with how we did. they asked dogs to start in the back with strollers, but i should’ve ignored that bc it caused more problems than it would’ve had we started up front with the runners 🙃

also, after we finished, i saw that we should’ve placed top 10 for our age group, but our name wasn’t up there! i know for a fact that i finished faster than some of those folks based on the times listed! 😡

🤭 turns out, i’m just an idiot because i’m NOT actually in the 41-50 age group yet 😆🤦🏽‍♀️ (although it appears my memory might be!) maybe i should pause and learn to read and not apply whatever assumptions are in my head to actual situations 🤪 swipe for the pic i took of the page i thought i should be on but not the one that actually says my name 🤣 we finished 17th for women 31-40! 🙌🏽

anyway, back to shopping for house stuff. anyone find any solid deals this weekend?? 👀

happy saturday, ya filthy animals! 🍂🦃🍁

collar: + .dogs
harness:

11/20/2025

you saw the downer. now let me show you our title run.

but first— is it just me or once you’re inside, does time make zero sense? i swear it feels simultaneously like we’re on star power in mario and also like we’re a 700 lb tortoise stuck in molasses 🍯😄

anyway, my swirly brain is one thing, but in reality, mr. intensity said “hold my rat” and knocked it outta the park.

quick rewind— after the NQ on his first senior run on saturday, we got back in there and patchy got his first senior Q! 🎉 we had another weird situation on that one— after i cheered, the judge whispered to me that we didn’t do the tunnel, which a) we did and b) led to her not stopping the timer until after everyone else confirmed he did 😠😩 but whatever. he Q’d and placed 1st on that run, so i had to check my competitive brain at the door - no reason to argue it. onwards. (not easy for me but i’m working on it.)

and thennn, on sunday, patchy came back ready to rock. on his first run, he found his 4 rats and climbed and tunneled in a minute flat! without checking the results, i would’ve guessed we’d taken 2. (what even is time??)

any guesses as to how long this one was, without checking the time? (i’ll drop the answer in the first comment.)

question: do you all enjoy watching full barn hunt runs like this? it’s not a quick 7 seconds like fastcat, so i’m always hesitant to post, but lmk if you wanna see more of this?

oh also, patchy got some LOOT this weekend. i made some promises, and i kept them AND some. more on that next!

11/17/2025

there were MANY highs this weekend, but there was one major low, and i’m still mad / bummed about it so we’re gonna start there.

i’m bummed because it was a stupid mistake, and the game ended early as a result of it. it was a mistake on my part, but one i’m still pretty upset about because i don’t think it was fair, and i still don’t have a good solve for how i could’ve *realistically* approached this differently.

luckily, we’d already done two runs of crazy 8s at this point, so he had played a little, but patchy had been waiting hours in between those runs and this one, and he’s familiar enough with the routine that he knows how it works. you go into the blind, you wait, you play, you get big time snackies for doing your job.

so what happened this time? his leash and collar fell off the fence. that’s it.

you’re allowed to bring your dog in on a hidden prong, but reasonably so, you’re not allowed to drop the prong and leash on the ground the way you can with flat collars and leashes.

normally, there’s a basket at the starting box so you can place it safely into there. this time, there wasn’t one anywhere in sight, so i tried to prop it up on the fence. gravity said “hold that thought” and down went the collar with leash in tow 😞

poor patchy had already caught a scent but the judge said “i’m gonna have to stop you there.” and that was the end of our first senior run this weekend ☹️

i guess it’s better that he did get to find one rat vs. not even having found any yet because i did get to reward him for finding that one before pulling him.

anyway, i’m a little mad that i lost $30 on a run that ended right as it started, but i’m more upset that patch didn’t do anything wrong, but he didn’t get to play his favorite game. (for anyone whose been here a while, patch likes barn hunt more than he even likes fastcat. hard to imagine but it’s facts.)

what would you have done in this situation? any suggestions?

i miss NY and being in the woods and the energy that i know NYC is exuding rn. i feel like it’s been a week with lots of...
11/06/2025

i miss NY and being in the woods and the energy that i know NYC is exuding rn. i feel like it’s been a week with lots of NYish reminders for some reason. is it the full moon?? 🧐

📌 super dog-friendly (Upstate NY)

🪢:

11/04/2025

y’all we’re so close!! for the first time in 3 years, we really truly actually committed to the number, and we’re almost there. the goal was to run at least one mile x 100 days in the year.

in my competitive head, pretty sure i said “ain’t no thang, chicken wang!” but in 2023, i think we did between 20-30ish days (i stopped tracking and didn’t use yet), and in 2024, we got close with mileage (90 mi) but still nowhere near 100 days (only 43 🤭). unfortunately, i’m really good at quitting when it gets cold, and patch is stellar at stopping when it’s too hot, so we’re a really solid combo 🫠

anyway, as of today, we’re 76 runs in, and we’ve clocked 162 miles of running! 🤠 with at least 24 more runs to go, i think i’m setting a new goal of hitting at least 200 miles. i probably should, considering i have a half marathon lined up in January and need to stay upping my mileage for that 😅

did you set any big fitness goals this year, running or otherwise? maybe it was just about walking your dog more often or walking up and stretching? if so, tell me all about it so i can celebrate with you! 🥰

p.s. while i may not have hit my goal the last two years, i ran more than i ever had before during each of those two years so ya know what? it was still worth it to try.

doing things with Patch is always going to be my most favorite thing in the whole entire world. doing hard things with h...
11/03/2025

doing things with Patch is always going to be my most favorite thing in the whole entire world. doing hard things with him makes life even sweeter.

challenging ourselves to show up in the best physical and mental shape is out-of-this-world awesome!

we run together often these days— 26 more runs til 100!!— and we’d done two obstacle course races before this one. the first, he sprinted 3.1 miles like it was freaking fastcat, and while i could barely breathe, we rocked the obstacles and somehow won our race. the second (about 6 months later) was an even longer run, and i had to stop him from sprinting about .5 miles in because i really just couldn’t and didn’t want to keep up.

this time, i gave it my ALL. and so did he. the way he PULLED me up hills and didn’t even seem winded!? he crawled through water he would’ve rather run around. he sprinted and jumped and crawled and swam, and his strength and stamina blew me away. he didn’t even show signs of slowing down until the last mile where he was clearly tired of jumping over giant wooden spools 😄 but only the one, and then we were back to sprinting. until we had to crawl through sand, and i may or may not have laid down for a breath and debated taking a nap right then and there! but we were doing so well so I didn’t. I couldn’t.

i couldn’t give up because Patch wanted to keep going.

dalmatians are so incredible. and dogs in general are just so freaking cool 🥹

anyway, here’s some photos from the race () 🤠 i ended up getting mostly high res and one low res - can you tell which one?

📸: c4 pet photography

11/02/2025

you’ll even get to spend more on photos than you do on the race itself! 🤪 but they’re worth it!

still thinking about this race and how much fun we had. somehow it’s been two whole weeks since we drove down to Alabama to be around a few hundred people who are just as nutty and obsessed with their dogs as we are.

.hammond.798 thank you to you and your team for putting this on for us knuckleheads to satisfy a fix!

Address

Nashville, TN

Opening Hours

Monday 8am - 6pm
Tuesday 8am - 6pm
Wednesday 8am - 6pm
Thursday 8am - 6pm
Friday 8am - 6pm

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Patch the Dalmatian posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Patch the Dalmatian:

Shortcuts

Share

Category