By Bob the Dog

In Pittsburgh—where the rivers intersect like a celestial Venn diagram, and the air tastes faintly of steelworker sweat and pierogi steam—there gathered a congregation of creatures so small, so fuzzy, so deceptively dainty that the gods themselves leaned over the edge of Olympus to squint.

They were dogs. Tiny dogs. Dogs the size of overripe mangoes, dogs that could fit in the side pocket of your cargo shorts. Dogs whose entire bodies shivered like wind chimes whenever the universe dared to exist.

Yet these pocket-sized pooches had come to pull.
To pull things.
Heavy things.
Things no reasonable mammal under 20 pounds should attempt unless they’d been dared by a drunken saint.

Take Lemon, a five-pound Chihuahua constructed mostly of determination, eyelashes, and pure voltage. She positioned herself at the starting line the way a warrior monk might contemplate the concept of gravity: with caution, reverence, and a silent promise to shame it.

Her owner whispered, “Go.”
And holy jalapeño.

Lemon pulled a 260-pound cart down a sixteen-foot stretch of industrial carpeting as if she were dragging the sins of humanity toward redemption. Fifty-two times her own weight—equivalent, one science-minded observer whispered, to a 175-pound man pulling a forklift, which is something a forklift was invented to prevent.

“She has a lot of motivation and drive,” said owner Erin Rios, but that was like saying the sun is “sort of warm.”

Lemon was not alone in this tiny revolution. Rat terriers, miniature poodles, Brussels griffons—the sort of creatures you’d expect to see wearing jaunty sweaters and ordering oat-milk lattes—were muscling in on strength contests once ruled by hulking canines with names like Brutus, Tank, or Chairman Woof.

The North American Weight Pull Association, the American Pulling Alliance, and the World Wide Weight Pull Organization had all carved out categories for these featherweight beasts, presumably after realizing that pound for pound, a determined little dog could embarrass physics itself.

The rules were simple:
• Pull a weighted object—cart, sled, existential burden—sixteen feet in under a minute.
• Steroids banned.
• No touching your dog in the chute.
• No food bribes, no matter how loudly the bacon whispers.

Of course, some owners tried to cheat. Humans, after all, are a species that will always invent a new way to disgrace itself. There were rumors of hot-dog-scented fingertips, covert sausage manicure sessions, even one man who slathered bacon grease on his trousers, thereby ensuring his laundry machine filed for emotional damages.

But most folks came for love.
For bonding.
For that mystical moment when a tiny creature looks up at you with Walt Whitman’s soul in its eyes and says, “Yeah, sure, I’ll drag that mountain for you.”

Take fourth-grader Micah Wacker, who trains Ruby Mae, a 14-pound Brussels griffon with the posture of royalty and the work ethic of a caffeinated goddess. He travels with Ruby Mae, his mom, and his grandma, forming a sort of multigenerational caravan of joy. When Ruby Mae gets excited, Micah says, “She pitter-patters on her tiptoes,” which is perhaps the purest sentence ever spoken by humankind.

Ruby Mae once pulled 1,900 pounds—a fact that should be taught in school curricula alongside the Magna Carta and sex ed.

Critics exist, because of course they do. PETA declared that weight-pulling exploits dogs’ desire to make humans happy and could harm their joints. They recommended hiking and fetch, which is lovely, but none of those activities involve watching a six-pound poodle drag a mass equivalent to a small Honda.

Dr. Darryl Millis, vet and sports-medicine oracle, said that as long as a dog is grown, healthy, and properly conditioned, it’s fine. “Start slow,” he advised, which is good advice for dogs, humans, and nearly anything that might be mistaken for a religion.

And so the tiny titans keep pulling—defying muscle expectations, defying gravity, defying every smug Great Dane who ever smirked at them. Because in this strange, swirling universe, sometimes the smallest creatures are the ones hauling the heaviest loads.

And doing it with a wag.