We were invited to cover some of the Danish Canicross championship in Tisvilde this year, for us the first time covering an outdoor sports event and being at a canicross event ever!

Running is boring!

That’s a regular notion that comes up when people discuss fitness and working out. Well, have you tried running with your dog?

We don’t mean a leisurely jog in the local park with your dog trotting beside you while taking the occasional sniff or poking your hand for treats. We mean high-speed trail running where your legs are machines working for their dear life trying to keep you alive and flying.

While we were at the DCF Danish Championship in Canicross 2025, ready to jump out of the way in case of collision, we tried to capture the amazing human-dog teams flying by us at impressive speeds.

What is Canicross?

In general, canicross is cross country running with your dog. More specifically, the dog is supposed to be running in front of the human, pulling them along while being “steered” through voice commands.

It is a sport that is gaining in popularity (probably throughout the Covid time, during which a lot of people got dogs and had to exercise and socialize outside) and producing similar sport types like canihiking (walking/hiking), bikejoring (cycling), dog scootering (dog scooters/kickbikes) or skijoring (skiing).

Denmark has a multiple running clubs, different races and competitions like dirtypaws which is our link to the crazy world of dog racing. There’s many local clubs spread throughout the country that meet to run together, attend races or participate in workshops, basically every week.

Can I run with my dog?

Everyone can run with their dog as long as the dog - and obviously you - are healthy and able to run.

The Danish Championships in Tisvilde

The Championships were held in north of Copenhagen, in the beautiful area of Tisvilde (which is home to lots of old seaside boutique hotels) and we were invited to capture (mostly video footage of) the event. Even though we might have heard of this sport, we didn’t really know what to expect.

The weather was sunny and nice (even though there was a chill wind) for the humans, but apparently it was already a bit hot for the dogs to run, we were told.

The area was filled with fancy dog trailers, water bowls, people in running gear and obviously a lot of dogs - and boy, they were ready to go and run!

Throughout the event, there was a constant soundtrack of excited barking and yipping, however, for us as dog owners it still was relatively relaxed. There were a lot of different dog breeds represented with the bigger part being high drive breeds like shepherds, pointers and other hunting dogs.

By default no one let their dogs “say hi” other humans and dogs unless they knew each other, but whatever your dog did in your team bubble was your own business and no one seemed to judge. As far as we experienced ourselves, there was also one quick encounter of growls and snarls at the end of the day during the award ceremony, but obviously no contact of the dogs.

The way people are more handlers of their dogs instead of, like common in our neighbourhood, picking the dog at the first sign of trouble instead of making it training or profusely apologising if their dog barks at another, was a great and training positive vibe.

We saw everyone set boundaries and let their dog realise that there was no danger and allowed them to self-regulate.

Being the Danish Championships, obviously there were ambitious participants there to do well in the competition. They were going at absolutely insanse speeds while still being in control of their dogs. At the starting line, they would already build physical and mental pull, springloaded to go, but being held back by a handler that would release them at the GO sign.

As you might be able to tell, we got a great series of shots with silly faces that we don’t want to keep from you, so here you are!

Not everyone is into canicross for winning all the competitions, though, and there were plenty of hobby runners as well whose dogs also at times had a bit more difficulty focusing on the running or even pulling (which apparently is something, dogs also might need to learn and isn’t instinctive for all dogs).