Freight Dog Pulling

Supplement to Day 16

This definitely deserves its own blog entry. One of the simply amazing North Country things that we got to experience at the Fair was a Dog Freight Pulling competition. While dog racing has to do with getting a team of dogs across the snow as fast as possible, freight pulling has to do with having an individual dog pull a wagon with increasingly heavy cement weights on it. The dog, with coaching and encouragement from its owner, has to pull the wagon across a line maybe about ten yards up a carpet covered plywood path. It is done by weight categories (how much the dog weighs) and, although it sounds like it could be boring, actually is quite exciting as these dogs really want to please their owners, and some of them are so filled with enthusiasm. We also were struck by the very good relationships between dogs and owners and how everyone was looking out for the welfare of the dogs. Even the dogs who could not pull their assigned loads had the load given a boost, after time had been called, so the dog could experience crossing the finish line. Once the load was moving, they were happy to finish pulling it.

We watched both the middle and heavy-weight divisions compete. These animals certainly could pull much more than their own weight, about 10 times as much. Part of what was so fun, was that the winning dog, Tater (as in Potato) was a 19-month-old, 176 pound St. Bernard puppy for whom this was his very first competition. And he won the heavy weight crown! The crowd really went wild when he was able to get 1880 pounds moving and keep it moving across the finish line! His photo was on the front page of the Sunday local newspaper. The middle weight dog winner pulled 1280 pounds, also quite a feat!

We decided that still photos weren’t going to tell the tale, so we used the video feature on our camera to share these with you. First is another of the heavy weight dogs and then Tater, the heavy weight dog who eventually won the contest. He had a little trouble getting started on this pull but you can see his enthusiasm once he really starts.