Zeetie Goes Carting

I caved and picked up the rubber frog squeaker toy because Gus has one (he has the elephant version) and Zeetie loves it. I have to hide it from her before our bedtime walk. It is one noisy toy. We're happy she can't play the drums, although, given the opportunity, I'm sure she would be banging away on them.

The little Miss Zeetz finally had a whole new outfit for her carting seminar. Her ratty old red leash, which Don had found a few years ago, was a little embarassing. Zeetz contributed greatly to the rattiness. The new black nylon leash goes with her black points. And, as lovely as it was, her pink collar just didn't match her coat nor the ratty red leash. I picked out a funky groovy one. The thing is, you can't even see the design for her coat but whatever makes the human happy.

We had a great carting seminar sponsored by the Bernese Mountain Dog Club of Canada. The instructors were super and the event was well-organized. Pictured below is John McMahon and June Ward. Zeetie was exhausted by the end of the day. She even slept in until 8h30 this morning.


There were 15 beginners and 7 advanced. We arrived in the cloud and we only had a few drops throughout the day. The sun came out in the afternoon and it became quite hot. Thank goodness they had canopies set up. Zeetie lived up to her bitch self to the other dogs on leash. Now and again, I would forget about her and someone's dog would get too close to her and away she went. Other than that, she was calm and adapted very nicely to the whole day and carting.

We started out by learning the basic commands of left (haw), right (gee), whoa, and backup. Her back up was super through the gate. Then we hooked up a pair of lines and dragged those around, followed by a yoke hooked to the end. Then a big bottle attached to that (Zeetie is shown with this below). We kept building to when the dog is ready to pull the cart. With each step, I walked her around so she would get used to the different paraphernalia. By the end of the day, she was pulling a cart around. The organizer was taking photos of the participants so I'll be able to soon post one of Zeetie pulling a cart.

June shows me how to set up the harness.

Photo courtesy of Denise Lauzon


Zeetie is pulling the cart!

Photo courtesy of Denise Lauzon

The advanced people put their dogs through their paces for us as the instructors explained to us what was expected at a carting event. Below is Denise Lauzon putting Harry through his paces.


Zeetz won't be ready to pull weight yet, not until she is fully developed. She can get used to pulling the cart, though, and I can work with her on commands. My next step is to get a harness and cart.

These are just a few of the carts on the day.