Rüdi and Drafting
One of the activities I really wanted to do with Rüdi is drafting/carting. Santa brought our carting starter kit a bit early in 2022, so I had to try it out. This is a video of one of Rüdi's first runs with it. I'd say he is a natural at 5 months!
[High resolution version]
(Before the experts yell at me, I know the harness is far too big/loose and that the shafts are not bent to the correct size. They are actually sized for our flat-coated retriever Echo, but I had to let Rüdi have the first try.)
Fast forward 20 months: Rüdi has a harness of his very own with a homebrew cart that fits him well. We ran our first open draft test (skipping the novice tests) on August 17, 2024, at the GSGSMDC draft trials in Williams, AZ and he passed on the first attempt, earning his DD (Draft Dog) title! We skipped novice level, which is on-leash, since he already has off-leash titles in Rally Obedience. I felt he was ready (and it's more fun) to jump straight into off-leash drafting and it paid off. We ran his second test the next day, but he flunked that one since he seems to have an aversion to walking through wood chips. In trying to get around them, he scraped a gate post during the freight haul portion of the test, and any touch is a fail in an open-level test. Sigh. But onward toward the Master Draft Dog title!
Swissies can use test passes from the following breeds:
- Greater Swiss Mountain Dogs (Golden State Event List, next tests TBD April, 2025)
- Bernese Mountain Dogs (So Cal Event List, next tests Feb 15 and 16, 2025, Nor Cal Event List)
- Newfoundland
- Great Pyrenees
- Saint Bernard
- Bouvier de Flandres
- Leonberger
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