Black Ribbon (13 page)

“Not exactly,” said Eva, “but Bingo’s a natural.”

Sara Altman tapped me on the shoulder. “Hey, nice to see Rowdy again. You got food with you?”

Me and American Express. I fished some dog treats out of my pocket.

“Little bits,” Sara ordered. Raising her voice, she called, “Could we get together for a minute? Then we’ll split up into groups.”

All of us gathered at the A-frame. Agility for beginners had drawn a decent-sized group: Eva and Bingo, of course; Cam and her super-sheltie, Nicky; Ginny with kissy-face Wiz; a married-looking couple and the two basenjis I’d seen lure coursing; and dog-tattooed Michael with the real dog, Jacob, a creamy white long-haired Akita. Malamutes with coats like that are called “woollies,” and long-haired corgis are known as “fluffies,” but as far as I know, long-haired Akitas are just plain long-haired. In malamutes, the long, soft woolly coat is a simple homozygous recessive trait that breeders loathe. You can’t show woollies, but in Malamute Rescue, we sometimes have waiting lists of adopters who’ve owned woollies and won’t settle for a dog with a standard coat. (Interested? Alaskan Malamute Protection League, P.O. Box 170, Cedar Crest, NM 87008) Phyllis Abbott had brought her male Pomeranian, Nigel, a handsome fellow who, in contrast to her husband, doubtless refrained from drinking, swearing, and running up big phone bills by talking dog politics. Joy, Craig, and the more-or-less Cairn, Lucky, were there, or perhaps I should say that Joy and Lucky were there and that Craig was also present. Young, blond, and sweet-faced, Joy stood in front of the massive A-frame with the little dog nestled in her arms.
About a yard to one side was her husband, Craig. I had a blasphemous vision of Joy and Lucky as the Madonna and Child posed before the A-frame, their manger. Craig was the awkward, extraneous Joseph, deeply puzzled by miraculous love.

“ZONE HABITS!” Sara smacked her open palm on the lower portion of the A-frame, which, I remind you, was like two nine-foot lengths of boardwalk hinged in the middle and raised to form an inverted V. The bulk of the obstacle—and
bulk
is the right word—was painted bright blue, but the lower portion of each ramp, maybe three and a half feet, was brilliant yellow. “This’s called a contact zone,” Sara told us. “What it is, is a safety zone, and it’s on all the go-up obstacles, the A-frame here, and the dogwalk, and the others. And the whole point of it is, if you let the dogs go crashing up onto the obstacles and jumping off, before long, you’re going to ruin your dog, because his bones and joints aren’t built to take that kind of punishment. Everything’s set real low right now, because these guys are beginners, but for competition, the ramps of the A-frame are up about forty-five degrees, and the apex, the top of it’s a little more than six feet above the ground.” Sara pointed to Rowdy, Bingo, and pretty Jacob. “Take these big guys. You let these big guys go crashing up and down, and in the short term, you’re going to have an accident, and in the
long run, you’re going to wreck your dog, and it might not seem like it, but the same thing applies to the little fellows, too.” As if bored with the safety lecture and ready for action, Phyllis’s bright-eyed Nigel frisked around and bounced toward Sara. “You want to get going, huh?” Sara asked the Pomeranian. To Phyllis, she said, “Bring him over here. You got food? Everybody got food? Okay. I’ll be real quick. Plain buckle collars. No chokes. Go easy, easy. Real gradual. In competition, he’s got to put at least one of his feet in that contact zone, and you’re going to want that speed, but for now, you want precision, so make sure he’s in the contact zone. And keep it fun! Lots of food! And easy does it!”

After the little introduction, Sara quickly divided us into groups. To my disappointment, she took the small-dog group. An instructor I didn’t know, another ascetic-looking woman, got medium-size dogs. Rowdy and I ended up in Heather’s group, which also included Michael and Jacob; Ginny and Wiz; a sporty-looking couple with the two utterly gorgeous English setters I’d seen in the canoe; and a hefty gray-haired woman and her massive mixed-breed, the two built alike, both on the model of an agility A-frame. And Eva Spitteler. And Bingo.

The small and medium dogs moved toward distant clusters of obstacles. Our group had the first go at the A-frame, the weave poles, and one of the tunnels. We started with the A-frame. At the head of our scraggly line were Ginny and Wiz, both of whom had done a little agility before. Right in back of them were Eva and Bingo. Determined to avoid trouble, I led Rowdy to the end of the queue. We took a place behind Michael and Jacob, who, as Michael assured me and as I observed for myself, was an exceptionally mellow Akita. Akitas, like malamutes, are big, brawny, sometimes dog-aggressive members of the spitz group, and some Akitas are even tougher than the toughest malamutes.

“He won’t do a thing,” Michael promised. “Jacob is the Gandhi of dogs.”

Rowdy is not. His coat is too good. I swear that there’s a genetic link. Practically every mahatma malamute I’ve ever known has been a woollie. That’s dog breeding for you: angelic temperament, faulty coat; good rear, east-west front; lovely head, lousy tail; great ears, dippy topline; ideal everything, sound dog, very typey, moves like a dream, and sure enough, one testicle that never drops.

“Well done!” Heather called out. “Praise her! Lots of praise! Good girl. What’s her name? Good girl, Wiz. Next?”

Eva led Bingo forward. “This is too low for him,” she complained. “He can handle a lot higher than this. This is going to be practically just like walking.”

“It’s plenty high to begin with,” Heather said, “and you want to make sure he gets the idea of the contact zones right now. So you just take hold of his collar, very gently, and you’ve got your food in your other hand, and you kind of use that to get him right in that contact zone, and when he’s there, give him a nice treat, and—”

And before Heather could finish, Eva dashed forward with Bingo at the end of a six-foot lead. On the ground in front of the ascent ramp, the big yellow Lab paused momentarily. Then he bounded up, entirely missing the contact zone, skittered over the top, and leaped off the other side as if he could hardly wait to get his feet back on the ground. “Good boy, Bingo!” Eva screamed. “Good boy! You’re a natural! Didn’t I tell you? Great, great work. Good boy! With you around, the rest of these dogs look like a pile of giant turds.”

Heather rolled her eyes briefly upward, shrugged her lean shoulders, and started instructing the massive gray-haired woman with the look-alike A-frame dog, an Irish wolfhound cross, maybe, an immense creature who turned out to be named Baskerville. Coached by Heather, the woman slowly lured the ponderous dog up and over the ramp. Then the
English setters took their turns. The first was timid and skittish; the second, bold, surefooted, and justifiably proud of himself, a happy dog once again discovering himself good at everything. I’d wanted to watch Jacob, but missed him because just as Michael led him toward the A-frame, Eva and Bingo cut in front of Ginny and Wiz to get in line directly behind Rowdy and me, and I was busy moving Rowdy away from Bingo and trying to size up the yellow Lab’s mood.

Then it was our turn. Before we even reached the obstacle, Heather intervened. “You do a lot of obedience,” she informed me.

“Yes,” I admitted.

“I get
Dog’s Life.
I read your column,” she said flatly.

I nodded.

“You better start right now getting used to working with the dog on your right,” she advised me. “In agility, you’ve got to be able to work with the dog on either side of you. So get on the other side of him, and put your food in your left hand, and …”

Rowdy was already past the yellow contact zone. Tail zipping back and forth, a big grin on his face, he reached the apex.

“Feed him!” Heather ordered. “Lots of praise! And then when he gets …”

By this time, Rowdy was in the contact zone at the bottom of the ramp, and I was awkwardly shoving food in his mouth and wondering how I could possibly learn to work with a dog on what was obviously the
wrong
side. The world of obedience, like the rest of the world, is designed for right-handed people. Always, the dog sits and heels at the handler’s left.

“Praise him! He did great!” Heather said.

“Good boy!” My words were superfluous. Rowdy had loved the A-frame. For once, he hadn’t even been very interested in food. Climbing up and down had been a self-rewarding activity.

“Everyone had a turn?” Heather asked. “Okay, a couple of you keep on with the A-frame, and while you’re doing that, I’ll get a few people started on the tunnel. Let the Labs try the A-frame again, and the setters, and bring the other dogs over here. And what you want to do with that yellow Lab,” she told Eva, “is, you’re going to have to slow him down and build his confidence, and even if you practically have to stop him in the zones and at the top of the ramp, that’s where you praise him and that’s where you give him a treat. Forget speed. All you work on now is correct zone habits.”

Again,
zone habits.
I liked the phrase. Erogenous vestments. Panamanian nuns. As I was fighting the dizziness induced by keeping Rowdy on my right—wrong—side, Heather pointed to what agility people call an open tunnel or pipe tunnel, the kind of cloth-covered wire spiral that children use, but, like all agility equipment, very sturdy. Actually, there were two open tunnels, one compressed and fastened with bungee cord to form what was hardly a tunnel at all, the other stretched to a length of eight or ten feet. We started with the hooplike compressed tunnel. Heather held each dog’s collar while the handler went around, bent down, looked through, caught the dog’s eye, and called. Then Heather released her grip on the collar, and the dog went through and ended up in the handler’s arms.

“Hey, these guys are doing just great. Anyone want to try this?” She pointed to the stretched-out tunnel. “You know your own dog best. If he’s ready, let him give it a try, and if he’s not, just give him a little time, and he will be. Don’t push him.”

“We’ll stick with this,” said the big woman. I don’t think I ever learned her name. I kept on thinking of her as Ms. Baskerville.

“I borrowed a tunnel from a neighborhood kid,” I said. “We’ve fooled around with it.” There are limits to my willingness to brag about my dogs. In fact, the first time I’d borrowed
he tunnel, while I’d been busy stretching it out and stabilizing it with cement blocks, Rowdy had gone zipping through.

“Jacob’ll watch,” Michael said. “Let him see that after you go in, you come out again.” To me, Michael added, “He learns a lot watching other dogs.”

Michael and the pretty Akita moved to the far end of the tunnel. Heather reached out for Rowdy’s lead. I didn’t know what breed Heather had. Probably a Border collie, incredible agility breed, fast, accurate, truly agile. Or maybe a mix. Some of the top agility dogs in the country are medium-size, zippy dogs with what mixed-breed fans like to think of as hybrid vigor. Whatever Heather had, it certainly wasn’t a malamute or any other breed with Rowdy’s power. I’m always embarrassed to tell a real dog person how to handle a dog, but only malamute people understand malamute power. I warned Heather: “Hang on!”

Then I hurried to the opposite end of the tunnel, near where Michael and Jacob had stationed themselves. I hunkered down and peered into the semidarkness. “Let him go!” I called. “Rowdy, here! This way!” I clapped my hands and made happy noises. As Rowdy entered the tunnel, his bulk blocked the light at the far end. “Rowdy, this way! Come on, good boy!” About halfway through, he dawdled. Then he put his nose to the floor, sank down, and settled in, evidently content to take a nap in the middle of what was supposed to be an obstacle.

While I’d been looking in the tunnel, Eva, Ginny, and the others must have decided that they were ready for a new obstacle. I sensed people around. The only voice I heard was Eva’s, “Big wimp,” she said. “Can’t get him in the water, and can’t get him out of there.”

“Call to him!” Heather instructed.

“Rowdy, here! Hey, let’s go! Rowdy, come on!” My whistling, calling, hand clapping, and thigh slapping finally
got him to his feet. Once he arose, he picked up speed and flew out of the tunnel so fast that I had to scramble to my feet and step out of his way to avoid getting plowed over. As Rowdy soared past and headed directly for Jacob, I could almost hear the fight begin. I could almost see the hideous tangle of snarling malamute and outraged Akita, the flashing teeth, the terrified efforts to separate the dogs, the unintended bites, the mauled and broken human arms.

But Jacob was, indeed, the Gandhi of dogs. I managed to grab Rowdy’s lead. When I hauled him in, away from Bingo, I saw what had delayed Rowdy in the tunnel. Tail soaring back and forth, eyes smiling, Rowdy proudly displayed the treasure he’d found: Clamped between his jaws was a big rawhide chew toy. Faced with a rawhide-bearing male malamute speeding directly at him, almost any other Akita I’d ever known would have gone for the rawhide, and the other dog be damned.

I let out a deep sigh. By now, Michael had moved Jacob a few yards away. “That could’ve been close,” I said.