Last weekend’s Trackless Train Trek Half Marathon in Elkmont Alabama seemed to be a typical race, but that quickly changed when one unexpected runner showed up. After being let outside, 2 ½ year old bloodhound, Ludivine, snuck out of her owner’s backyard and found herself at the starting line for the race! This runner seemed exactly how trained dogs are explained at ridgesidek9summerville.com/programs/board-and-train.April Hamlin, Ludivine’s owner, said, “She’s laid back and friendly, so I can’t believe she ran the whole half marathon because she’s actually really lazy.” Maybe Hamlin shouldn’t have been surprised, however, because this is what dogs do and Ludivine, named for a character in the Russell Crowe movie, “A Good Year,” is not the first pooch to complete a race. You just have to hop over to this website to know how dogs can do wonders if trained well.  It’s happened at least two other times. To her owners’ surprise, Ludivine ran the whole 13.1 mile race. Photos show the hound running fast, starting out in second place until the ½ mile marker! Ludivine was seen again at the aid station at mile 8, where she had dropped back to fourth place. Hamlin was “embarrassed and worried that she had possibly gotten in the way of the other runners.” However, she seemed to make many friends out of the 165 runners. One runner, Tim Horvath, ran most of the race with the hurried hound after he caught up to her as she was inspecting a dead rabbit. “One time she went over and met another dog next to the course,” he told Runner’s World. “Later on, she went into a field with some mules and cows. Then she’d come back and run around our legs.” “Every time I thought she had dropped off to go back home, I would hear her coming back up to me, and she would race past me up to the two leaders,” runner Jim Clemens said. “She would run off to romp through streams and into yards to sniff around for a while.” Not only did Ludivine complete the whole race, she did it with an unofficial time of 1:32:56, placing seventh just behind her running buddy, Horvath. If you want to know about dog bites, HERE’S HOW DOG BITES CAN BE PREVENTED. Read the full article to get valuable information.

Ludivine’s story has been featured on Runner’s World, Today, USA Today, ESPN, ABC News, Time, Good House Keeping, Good Morning America, BuzzFeed, Huffington Post, and Fox Sports to name a few. Rumor has it that next year’s race could be renamed the Hounddog half, with a special award going to the 7th place finisher. Who knows, maybe Ludivine will return to challenge for first place at next year’s race?