It’s a dog’s life: SuperDogs keep their cool in the heat at Queen City Exhibition

These SuperDogs are superstars.

‘The SuperDogs!’ are a Canadian company that travels across the country with talented pups and their owners and are performing all weekend at QCX.

Kara Bellingham has been a part of the performance team for six years and has four of her dogs in the show.

“It’s really the best thing I can do,” she said. “I just get to go out and play and have fun with my dogs all summer.”

She tours with the show from June until the end of September.

“Each dog has a different skill set,” she said. “We hone in on what that dog really loves doing. It’s all treat and toy based and having fun with them.”

The dogs don’t just do basic tricks like sit and stay, they’re true athletes.

Kara has been performing with the SuperDogs for six years. She has four dogs with her who are experts in different skills. Here’s one of her pups competing in the relay race event. @CJMENews pic.twitter.com/yHPy5daaX7

— Nicole Garn (@garnnic) August 2, 2024

“The SuperDogs performance is a show with our dogs having fun playing a bunch of different games,” Bellingham said.

“You’ll see them catching frisbee, doing high jump and relay races. It’s all about us having fun with our dogs on stage and bringing smiles to everybody.”

From rescue dogs to Dalmatians, border collies, Scotties and more, any pooch can be a SuperDog.

“You can send in a video of what your dog does to SuperDogs and if they like what they see you have a chance to be a part of the team,” Bellingham said.

“Because we travel to many different cities we’ll bring in local trainers quite often. Any dog can be a SuperDog!”

Kara Bellingham and her pup Treble love interacting with the crowd at the SuperDog shows. (Nicole Garn/980 CJME)

There are 25 dogs at the Queen City Exhibition (QCX) show, which comes in handy with the extreme heat.

“With having so many dogs, we make sure we rotate them out so they’re only out for a short period of time,” Bellingham said.

“We do have lots of fans for them to keep the airflow going. We have cooling coats for them that we can wet down and throw on them. We have an air-conditioned trailer here, so we can put them there as soon as they’ve finished running. We’re really conscious of how long the dogs are out in the heat.”

Certain dogs will sit out from a performance if it’s too hot.

“We might shorten the show a little bit and we just make sure whatever dogs are coming out are dogs that can handle the heat,” Bellingham said.

“So if we have really hairy breeds, those dogs might not be seen during that particular show.”

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The shows are only 30 mins long and the dogs rotate out.

“Each dog is out on stage for maybe like two minutes (at a time),” Bellingham said.

I got to meet Kara and Treble of the SuperDogs at the #QCX. Treble can do so many tricks I lost count! The team at SuperDogs take great care of their pups, especially during the heat. They have all the fans and air conditioning you could imagine. @CJMENews pic.twitter.com/1jIGH2U8FC

— Nicole Garn (@garnnic) August 2, 2024