Skidboot 'The Smartest Dog In The World' (18 page)

"They saw me being a little rough," David said, understanding how a group of people up in the control booth might wonder at him, a big man, throwing himself down in the
Growling Dog
exercise. "I get on top of Skidboot and just push him down," nearly flattening Skidboot but also giving him a feeling of security by being dominated. But the rodeo committee didn't like dog flattening. They recalled their own house pets, friendly Setters, Cocker Spaniels, bouncy and long-haired and companionable dogs who curled at your feet and fetched newspapers. No one had to flatten
their
dogs to get cooperation.

"No more of that rough stuff," they chided, and David reluctantly agreed.

One of the most important canine lessons is restraint, a master-doggie bargain usually struck during puppyhood. Skidboot, now age four, was past the teachable time, when a puppy's wobbly attention is focused with restraint devices such as a buckle collar. The trainer flops the pup up on a table or some place out of the comfort zone, then applies pressure as the puppy struggles, preventing nipping and biting by pressing a fistful of fingers under its jaw. The puppy can't bite, can't move its head, can't resist.

After a week or so of struggle comes compliance, rewards and more resistance, until the pup finally calms down enough for the next step, learning to lie on its side, called the lateral down. Methods differ, but a common approach might be to slide the dog down along the length of the trainer's body, holding its legs, praising it enough to calm the dog while correcting leftover, aggressive behavior. The training can last for months, but at the end, a relaxed dog is well-attuned to every inflection of the master's voice, to his or her movements, even expectations. Restraint, the pup learns, is unpleasant at best but, well, it
just keeps happening.
By teaching a dog to tolerate handling and to obey, it basically saves them stress. David knew that every dog owner, even those up in the stands, had thrown body blocks to tame a pet and were thus used to the idea of physical acts.

A dog, like any being, has choices and can choose
not
to cooperate. Since Skidboot had started his training late, his genetic qualities were sharply defined. A Blue Heeler, snarling and aggressive, is bred to never quit. A Heeler is a hard-headed, stubborn dog, a dog like a filibuster, a dog so tenacious it will fetch its own tail. You had to train them tough and damn the consequences.

"I am the meanest dog around," David snarled at Skidboot, "And "cause of that, you don't have to be!"

Skidboot cocked an ear and studied David, his eyes pulled half-shut. He scanned the man's height, craning nearly up to the ceiling to catch the top brim of cowboy hat, the familiar one with the crease at the crown, then back down to the boots, slightly scuffed Acmes with square toes.
Really?
Skidboot pondered.
Maybe I need a hat too
.

No one needed to tell either one about empathy. Dogs, true empaths, are even known to be contagious yawners, copycats who see you yawn and join in. Which is to say, a dog can get as bored as a person. It was David's job to make sure that didn't happen to Skidboot.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

New Dog, New Tricks

Contrary. That was Skidboot. Contrary. Also David Hartwig.

Even after the mock rodeos, the public punishment, the reluctant whittling away of Skidboot's ornery disobedience, David had a feeling that the dog's training lacked some hard underpinning, something bred of the wild that he hadn't been able to provide.

No one else thought so. Barbara, knee-deep in a job that took her 30-miles to work every morning and deposited her home late at night, spent more time driving than FedEx. She'd leave early, and David, looking around the empty house, would suffer the pangs—however brief—of the one left behind. A home guy, instead of the elite athlete he knew himself to be. Now, he was just the man who slapped together peanut butter sandwiches, packed lunch bags and swept up. He smiled at the thought, knowing it was only a partial truth. The real story lay in his work with Skidboot, an effort that was slowly, inevitably, transforming their lives.

"Hey, it's Skidboot!"

"Look, there's that dog!"

Everywhere he drove these days, people would wave at them, although mostly at Skidboot. Just a few years into the entertainment circuit and they were local celebrities! But something was missing…

David mused about it while shoeing, a steadily decreasing pastime now that they had the rodeo money. But it comforted him to have the heavy hoof bearing down, to trim and cut and hammer while puzzling out certain ideas.

"I got it!"

That day had started out with the Andersons pulling into the drive. People didn't often pull up, as the Quinlan property curled into cul-de-sac at the end of a long gravel drive. But when the UPS came, or the postman, Skidboot usually barked and pranced out to meet them. They would honk, a brief tap for politeness. In rural Texas, you never want to sneak up on anyone, it was only right to give a quick honk. In reality, the truck announced itself when Skidboot ran out, ragged howls of welcome flaking loose like paint chips. Then the cat yowled, the neighbor's chickens kicked in, messy little squawks, like "oh somebody broke my eggs! Oh be careful of the chicks." Followed by another dog or a nearby horse. The commotion spread like a rip tide, and this irked David.
Why do dogs always have to run out to the truck?

Brilliant! He had a new idea.

Why not make Skidboot run to him first, a subtle master-trainee exercise that would turn the dog toward David first, the truck second. Subtle, he thought, maybe meaningless, but also, maybe not.

"I am going to reverse the natural order of things, " David told Barbara that night, to which she replied coolly, pulling Skidboot close and nuzzling him. "As long as you don't make it too hard on Skidboot. He works enough as it is."

He works?
David thought.
What about me?
They both knew the unspoken rule, which was
anyone afraid of hard work had better leave ranching alone.

Nighttime turned chilly even though it was mid-summer.

The next day, starting at daybreak, would be day one of Dog Reversal for David and Skidboot, an ambitious undertaking, but one that would cement the order between them. David placed his hands, large, square, able to lift half a horse if necessary, around Skidboot's neck. Softly, he spoke to the dog.

"Look here, from now on, you don't run after the cars and trucks. You don't go out barkin' when Barbara comes home. You don't announce yourself to the neighbors. Instead, Skidboot,
you come to me first!

Inversion, or reversing the natural order of things seemed to David, well, natural. He usually reversed his own methods from what others thought tried and true. Life bounced with reversals. Why, he did it on the guitar and piano all the time, taking a Beatle's favorite, like
Here Comes the Sun
and modifying the melody to replace ascending intervals with descending intervals, or throwing in a bass note instead of a chord. Roger down at the hardware store always shouted out "water is precious, now you conserve," rather than "y'all come back, now." When pressed, he would murmur, "callighumpian," with no explanation. The man liked to play with words, reversing them—the way David played with music. It was unusual. Of course there were the usual salary reversals, when the bottom fell out of the pay scale. In any good book or play, events picked up when there was a reversal. Even chromosomes reverse themselves. Reversing the natural order of things seemed perfectly…natural.

So David worked with Skidboot, both falling into the familiar routine, the toy reward, the encouraging "good boy," the infinite number of checks and halts to get Skidboot to move slowly toward a toy, to stop, to hesitate, to tap once, then twice. David would murmur "tag my hand" or "tag my foot," and Skidboot, ears perked, would figure out the difference. The dog constantly amazed everyone, his skill verging over into inexplicable, because no matter how David mixed and matched the drill, Skidboot would understand it, would reach into the sorting and gathering part of his brain and match the command to the action.

Every success won him his toy, plucked from its storage place on the mantle. He loved sticks too, and the second David released him from his task and said "go get it," Skidboot would streak toward his reward, shaking the stick so violently that he kicked up dust, spinning in circles, slobber flying like a rainbird.

The training went on for a month, with Skidboot trying to run forward at cars and David holding him from behind. David was working with the natural instinct of the Blue Heeler, which was "herding" from behind. He sensed that it was sure to work out.

One evening, Skidboot heard Barbara pull up in her truck. Instead of the usual frantic "welcome home" yapping, he sedately stepped over to David, nuzzled his leg, pawed him once, twice and looked toward the truck.

"Yep, the truck's there all right.
This is unbelievable!A dog that doesn't bark at cars.
David stood wondering at the furry good fortune that had landed with them. A devout man who felt fulfilled by church on Sunday, he found only one explanation for their good fortune, and this idea—divine intervention—suited him just fine. This dog was a gift, come to improve their lot. Thanks were definitely in order. And Skidboot, for all he knew, had become a new inversion statistic, a thing that worked contrary to logic and pre-established order, much like the weather, the economy and the vicissitudes of the heart.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Team Skidboot

Oh no,
David thought. Here he comes.

He tried to check the impulse, purely irrational, but he couldn't help pulling his hat down, nearly over his face. Skidboot looked surprised. Why was
his David
hiding his face behind the cowboy hat? This upset him, and he let out a quick bark. Face hiding wasn't part of their routine.

"Shut up, Skidboot!" David tried to turn their course from the sidelines, where they'd been watching a skilled roper chase down a calf at the Texas State Fair. David envied the roper, gliding like a charioteer, motions fluid, bandanna stretched out behind him in the wind. The freedom of it…

But there, right in front. Again! Randy Coyle.

Randy's eyes lit up when he saw them, and if he noticed that David was skulking with his hat pulled low, he neglected to mention it. Like all the ropers, Coyle knew about David's new calling, but what
he
called it was clowning.

"So, how's clown world?" David struggled to keep things light. He had an ongoing vendetta with this man, who won by hook or crook, using skill—
yes, he had skill
—nepotism and every illegal device he could find. Coyle was notorious for stuffing cotton in his horse's ears, sometimes used with skittish horses to help them focus, but seen in the rodeo arena as unfair advantage.

"I hear you're using tampons these days," David zinged, referring to the use of a tampon instead of cotton balls. The biggest joke in the rodeo happens when a tampon flies out of some mare's ear, making the crowd yell with laughter. A horse's ear is a strange, cavernous, crenellated area, the skin of the canal thick and slippery, filled with build-up, dirt and a rich supply of blood flow in the capillaries. Spooked horses are more spooked by having their ears handled, although any horse that gets
stuffed
as often as Coyle's did was probably used to it. For a tampon, you usually soak it with water, and it expands in the canal.

Coyle laughed easily, hardly bothered. "Whatever helps me win, my friend. And I'm doing a lot of that!"

Skidboot bristled, lifted his lip. He was on the verge of snarling when he felt David's hand touch his flank, one firm touch. He settled back and they walked away from the interaction, awkward, stiff-legged. David's familiar anxiety shot through him, his stomach lurched, he felt like heaving. It was one thing to ride confidently into the ring, familiar with the sway of Hank, knowing the feel of the rope as it sailed out of his fingers, falling into the body rhythm of a lifetime. But this was brand new. He had to depend on this dog not to be humiliated, and that was a lesson still to be learned.

Lord, don't let this go wrong
shot through his mind, along with the realization that, trembling and anxious as he was, he couldn't even plead for success. He could only pray for the bare minimum, which was not to shame himself, himself, his family, and well, he guessed, his dog.

Indecision then vanished. A performer—no, two performers—entered the ring, greeted by an interested buzz. Any crowd gives a grace period as it waits, like a living thing, to be fed novelty, delight, and even surprise! Like children, they anticipate, and David felt a surge of responsibility. As part of this plan, he
would make it work.

Gus, sweat streaming, shirt stained dark, bellowed over the mike, his words garbled into a stream as he
kicked off this year's annual rodeo talent show, mumble mumble, mumble.

All David heard were the words "retired calf roper," which made him feel tired and defeated even before he began. They must have had the same effect on the audience, because the usual hush of anticipation broke. People coughed, chatter rose, interest flagged. Someone threw a beer can, and it bounced emptily on the pounded clay floor.

"…and his dog, Skidboot!!"

David wheeled around and saw Skidboot imitating his limp. "Not part of the show," he hissed, even though, later, he reflected on it and saw that it
was
pretty funny.

But not to the audience. They waited, deadpan, creating that inevitable entropy of disinterest that every performer shudders to encounter, although David was still too new to the entertainment game to really understand it. Still, Gus tried to drum up enthusiasm, his voice a carnival cry touting David's buckaroo past, calling him the best horseman yet, and asking—
was it begging?
—for a big welcome.