AR-News: "Lug-Nuts offers a different kind of competition for dogs"

[Glickman37 at aol.com]

Posted on Wed, May. 19, 2004 
Lug-Nuts offers a different kind of competition for dogs

BY WILLIAM HAGEMAN
Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO - (KRT) - Impounding dogs, arresting owners and participants and 
confiscating equipment are some of the tools used in the effort to stop 
dogfighting.

Sue Sternberg may have come up with another one.

Nearly two years ago, Sternberg, the founder and owner of Rondout Valley 
Animals for Adoption, a shelter in upstate New York, started Lug-Nuts, a program 
that encourages competition in the form of weight-pulling contests, rather than 
dogfights.

"The most popular dog sport in high-crime urban areas is dogfighting," said 
Sternberg, who was featured in an HBO documentary, "Shelter Dogs," earlier this 
year. "Not the professional, the multimillion-dollar drug lord. Most of the 
fighting is done casually on street corners. So we wanted to introduce a dog 
sport that was fun and exciting, that was equally as macho - because everyone 
wants to know how strong their dog is - but nonviolent, something that would 
increase the bond and relationship."

Lug-Nuts uses a plastic children's sled piled with bags of dog food of 
varying weights. A dog is harnessed to the sled and encouraged with treats and 
praise to pull. (No dog can be forced to perform). A competing dog's pulling total 
is determined as a percentage of its body weight, so in theory, at least, a 
willing Chihuahua can outpull a balky Rottweiler. There are cash prizes - 
typically $200 for first, $100 or $150 for second, and $60 to $100 for third - that 
are doubled if a dog is spayed or neutered.

So far, the contests are mostly held in the New York area, though the program 
is getting started in Quincy, Ill.

Lug-Nuts seems to be getting through to owners who might otherwise be using 
their dogs for fighting. At least one New York dog owner has bought his own 
kids' sled and has his pit bull work out regularly (the dog is a consistent 
winner, Sternberg said). Other competitors are bringing their friends to the 
contests.

"There's a group of regular guys who keep coming. And they tell their 
friends, and those guys show up," she said. "So a guy showed up yesterday with an 
8-month-old pit bull named Chaos. He had never done anything like this, and 
neither had his dog. Chaos did really well and ended up third. At the end, we're 
sort of announcing the prizes, and the guy was stunned that Chaos had finished 
third. All these guys he's in competition with, they're like pounding him on 
the chest and shaking hands, and they're saying `Your dog is great; your dog is 
awesome.' And he was just so happy. It was great."

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For more information on the Lug-Nuts program, go to www.suesternberg.com, 
then click on Training Wheels, then on Urban Solutions, and then on Lug-Nuts 
Program.

---

© 2004, Chicago Tribune.

Visit the Chicago Tribune on the Internet at http://www.chicagotribune.com

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.


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