Soon after I arrived, I happened upon the “Lure Coursing Arena”, where a line was quickly forming. Lure coursing is basically a sectioned off area with a cable going all the way around the area about 6 inches off the ground. The cable goes through a little motor, and has a flag on it. An operator makes the cable go around and around, and by doing that it makes the flag look like a little animal running around at top speed. For $15.00, your dog gets to spend 2 plus minutes inside this ring chasing a flag. Some dogs take to it immediately and try as fast as they can to catch whatever is on that cable, while others merely look at it a bit and then go sniff around. I’ve seen these at a few different events I’ve been to, and it’s always interesting to watch.

Probably the most amazing thing I saw on Friday night was the Canine Weight Pulling Competition. Laurel Highlands Working Dogs hosted the competition sanctioned by the World- Wide Weight Pull Organization, and the basic idea for this is to have dogs of various sizes pull a weighed down 4 wheeled cart. Each dog wears a harness that evenly distributes the weight across their complete body, and they need to pull the cart 16 feet. On Saturday and Sunday, they actually opened up the ring so that anyone in the crowd could see if their dog is a good fit for weigh pulling by trying it.