Video goodness: Hey, that’s no midfielder! Terrier crashes soccer game, tries to catch the ball

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We know dogs -- particularly terriers like this one -- like to chase things. Chasing a soccer ball seems like a natural activity, but chasing a soccer ball when human players are barreling down on you with no intention of stopping? That seems like a bad idea to us.

Bad idea or not, though, this terrier seems to have had a great time running his little heart out on the soccer pitch -- right up until he gets unceremoniously picked up by the scruff of his neck, that is. (He doesn’t appear to enjoy that part one bit.)

Apparently this dog isn’t the first of his kind to think it would be fun to crash a soccer game; another dog crashed a World Cup game in 1977 (but he was ejected much more quickly than this guy was).

If you, like us, were wondering about this sport with a somewhat mysterious style of play, commenter SteveC at the Arbroath blog gives a bit of background. According to SteveC, this is International Rules Football, which combines elements of Gaelic football and Australian rules football for matches between Ireland and Australia. ‘I saw this match on telly as it happened,’ SteveC writes. ‘It was brilliant. Everyone was rooting for the dog.’

(Hat tips to the fine sites the Daily Wh.at and Arbroath for alerting us to this amazing video, which we could happily watch for hours on end. In fact, that’s probably what we’ll be doing this weekend.)

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-- Lindsay Barnett

Video: Jezza46 via YouTube