There are photos of peeps getting pulled by horses and little shetland ponies right through the streets of Montreal but this is the first I've seen of that all-so-rare occurence: dog carting.
The hound appears to be hyperventilating as he pulls that 200 pounds of fleshy pulp and gristle around the Plateau but he's not complaining. Indeed there's another dog keeping him company but at a safe enough distance to avoid being recruited for the next leg of the journey.
Well, there is nothing to be dogmatic about; after all, the dog days of summer were a welcome change after the wintery gloom!
ReplyDeleteIn any case, that dog cart isn't something to be thrown to the dogs!!!
(With apologies to the late E.M. Frimbo)
Recall a young guy in the McGill Ghetto in the 80s who used a dog (pit bull?)to pull his wheelchair at high speed. If I remember correctly he may have also used a bell as a "gang way" warning for pedestrians.
ReplyDeleteThere was an older fellow lived on my street in Ahuntsic many years ago who always traveled in a small cart, pulled by a big black, shaggy,tired looking dog.
ReplyDeleteI never knew who he was but I saw him from afar a few times and it was obvious he was paraplegic. I only saw him on summery days. Don’t know what he might have done to travel during the wintertime but on good days, he seemed quite continent to have this mode of travel to get him around.
Who remembers the young guy who used to ride his red miniature, motorized car through the streets of NDG in the late '50s. I never knew his name, and don't think I ever asked him what it was.
ReplyDeleteTo the best of my recollection, the last time I saw him was about 1960, parked at a gas station on Cote St. Luc Road.
I don't know if he was even legally permitted to drive it on city streets at the time, or if the police simply looked the other way.
There's a wheelchair-bound guy in the Shaughnessy Village area who's been pulled around by his dogs for over 20 years now. Story is that he was a biker who fell off wrong one day and ended up paralyzed. I remember reading about him in the Gazette maybe 10-15 years ago. The story said his dogs would die of exhaustion after 4-5 months. I can believe it. He used to drive those poor beasts mercilessly. More than one hapless pedestrian has been almost (or actually) run down by him as he and his mutts speed along the sidewalks.
ReplyDeleteOne local story has it that an older guy with a cane just managed to get out of the way, but while flailing to keep his balance somehow managed to poke the cane through the wheelchair's spokes, dumping "Easy Rider" on the sidewalk. Witnesses, familiar with the jerk's antisocial conduct, apparently applauded his dumping. "Chairboy" is still around: I saw him just before winter, being hauled up St. Mathieu by his then-current four-legged "engine".
Don't forget, dogs were used to haul things around here before the horse came over from Europe. Not just dog sleds, which actually I don't know the origins of. The horse slowly migrated across the continent, the Nez Perce kind of in the pacific Northwest didn't get the horse till 1730, and indication of the migration. There was all that history before Europeans spread across the continent.
ReplyDeleteAs for the guy in the wheelchair, I was never sure if the dog pulled him or just ran along beside him. One dog tied to one side of the wheelchair would tend to cause steering issues, and while he never seemed to wait for people to get out of his way, he did go in a straight line.
He doesn't seem to go as fast as he used to, and it often seems like he's accompanied by young women.
Michael