Dog main attraction at kite fest

LOWVILLE — People call him "Crazy Barnaby, the Kite-Flying Dog," and he was the focus of attention Sunday at the third annual Maple Ridge Kite Festival.

Kim T. Linehan, Peabody, Mass., stood by Barnaby, a 21/2-year-old shar pei-corgi mix, watching her dog effortlessly maneuver the blue "penta," or five-pointed kite, tied to his collar.

"That's his new kite. It's a bit longer and easier to fly," said Donald L. Tuff, Ms. Linehan's boyfriend.

Ms. Linehan said Barnaby, a former rescue dog from Georgia, has been flying kites for about a year and a half.

"It sort of started as a goof," Mr. Tuff said.

He said some of his friends and Ms. Linehan were talking about a kite-flying chicken from Canada, named Miss Ohio.

"So we said, 'Hell, if a chicken can do it, why not a dog?'" he said.

And surprisingly, the dog didn't need any training to fly a kite, Ms. Linehan said.

"He's a natural. He took right to it," she said.

Ms. Linehan said she started bringing Barnaby to kite festivals and people "just loved him."

"He flies kites with us three or four times a season, between May and October or November," Mr. Tuff said.

Next year, Barnaby might get a cat-shaped kite, so it would seem as if a cat is chasing a dog when he flies it, Mr. Tuff said.

Also at the third annual Maple Ridge Kite Festival was Robert A. Lussier, Beaver Falls, riding his kite buggy around the farm.

"It's so much fun, I can't believe it. My wife thinks I'm crazy, of course," said Mr. Lussier, who started riding a kite buggy in May.

He said steering a buggy with only a "power kite" can be tricky and dangerous at times. The fastest he has traveled on his used buggy was 30 mph, but a lot of people go as fast as 42 mph.

"You just have acceleration and air brakes," he said. "You can get pretty scraped up if you're launched out of a buggy."

However, learning how to ride a kite buggy should be fairly easy for most people, and two days of training is usually enough to cover the basics, he said.

"The biggest time investment is learning how to fly a power kite," Mr. Lussier said.