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Friday, May 23, 2014

Taking the Dog for a Ride in Hengyang

In contrast to a man I saw taking a dog for a run while he rode a motorbike, a woman I saw today with a non-motorized vehicle expended more energy than her dog as they moved about Hengyang.

woman pulling a two-wheeled wheelbarrow with various items and a poodle on it

The scene made me think of a story I had heard decades ago about someone using poodles in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. A quick online search led me to an AP article from 1990:
John Suter will drive his black standard poodles up the Iditarod Trail for the last time in 1991.

The three-time Iditarod finisher has been trying for 14 years to raise an all-poodle team to run in the 1,200-mile sled dog race from Anchorage to Nome. He's spent an estimated $150,000 on the project and weeded through 80 poodles, a span of six generations, he said.

"It just didn't sell," he said recently by telephone from his home in Chugiak. "You can score on the news with poodles but you can't get a cup of coffee or a bag of peanuts with them."
I don't know if the woman I saw today has gotten any bags of peanuts with her dog. At least it appears she has a furry companion though.

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