Dogged Pursuit Read online

  The dog ahead of us—a cocker spaniel named Shiner—is midway into her run, and we’re getting ready to go on the line, when the by-now familiar sound of Dusty’s regurgitative warm-up reaches my ear. I look down just in time to see him spew up a big glob of sulfur-colored foam. “That’s it,” I tell myself. “It’s empirically proven: I am absolutely projecting my own infirmities onto my dog. And pretty goddamn specifically too.”

  I feel a surge of panic; Shiner is heading for the finish. We should be on line, ready to go. Instead I’m standing here with a woozy Sheltie and a pool of sick. What the hell do I do? Fortunately, Andi, supportive soul that she is, has chosen this moment to come by and wish me good luck. She’s seen what’s happened, waves me on, and shouts, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll take are of it—just go!”

  Despite Andi’s charity, my nerves are all ajangle as we head out to the line. I put Dusty in a sit-stay and head to the first obstacle, a simple jump, then turn back to face him. I can’t help looking past him to where Andi is on her hands and knees, mopping up the flooring with paper towels. I always knew she was an unflaggingly positive person, but this sort of support I could never have expected from a fellow hobbyist. I’m starting to recognize that this group is there for each other through thick and thin (and apparently foamy). How do you even begin to thank someone for that? Flowers? Possibly. In any color but yellow.

  I snap to attention and call for Dusty to come. The first jump goes easily enough, but it’s straight downhill from there. I’m still ill and anxious, and as a result he is too. He bails off the A-frame, refuses the teeter, and his weave-pole entry is about as accurate as if I’d dropped him onto it from a plane. We hobble off the course, barely ambulatory.

  I take just enough time to thank Andi profusely for help above and beyond, and to wish everyone good luck on their jumpers runs, because as much as I’d like to stay and be supportive, I’m in desperate shape and so is my dog.

  Back on the road, with the window lowered just enough to allow some invigorating autumn air to bathe my face, I begin to feel somewhat restored. It’s a few hours earlier than we departed yesterday so the roads aren’t nearly as bad. My head, slowly and by degrees, begins to clear.

  Still, it’s been a pretty rough day right from the get-go, and I have to wonder if there’s an element of hubris at play here. After all, I was more than a tad cocky yesterday, swanning around with my new title and my pair of ribbons, dreaming about glory and getting all chummy with the judge. The gods have accordingly spent this ensuing day slapping me back down to my proper place in the dirt. Maybe that’s the way it’ll always be, any success inevitably triggering a cosmic backlash.

  “Never mind, it’s over,” I say, looking at Dusty in the rearview mirror. “We got through it, and we’re still in one piece. Right, boy?” He shoots me a ghastly, panicked grimace; he’s panting more than usual. “For God’s sake, I wish you’d just relax.” But not much has changed since that first drive we took together. He hasn’t learned to sit or recline in the car, insisting instead on standing bolt upright, acting like it’s his job to ward off imminent disaster.

  Still, he seems a little more distraught than usual today. I don’t think anything about it till forty minutes into the drive, when I’m suddenly accosted by a wave of fecal funk. “Oh God no,” I say aloud, and I swerve quickly over to the side of the road. I jump out of the car, throw open the back door, and discover that, just as I feared, Dusty has unleashed a torrent of diarrhea on the backseat. The gods clearly aren’t through with me yet. And with classical symmetry, they’ve decided to bookend my day with quantities of liquid shit.

  “It’s all right, boy,” I tell him, unhooking him from his seat harness and taking him to the side of the road. He sits with his head hung in shame, making himself very small, almost embryonic. “It’s not your fault,” I add consolingly. But I can’t help thinking that it is his fault. I always give him plenty of time to graze the grass before we start on any long drive. I can’t be blamed if he’s wound himself up too tightly take advantage of it.

  Or can I? Didn’t I just this afternoon determine conclusively that my early suspicions were dead on? That I’m the big bad behind all his aberrations?

  Fortunately, I still have one more old towel on hand and a large bottle of mineral water in the trunk. A skillful application of both soon has the backseat looking (if not quite smelling) as good as new. I make a scientific note that diarrhea is much more absorbent than vomit; a fact that future generations (or my car’s next owner) will surely wish to know.

  I leave the soiled towels by the side of the road. I know it’s littering, but I’m too stressed out to think of any other means of disposing of them. As atonement to the planet, I make a deal with myself to write a check to Greenpeace or the Sierra Club when I get home.

  “Okay,” I say, as I snap Dusty back into place and head around to the driver’s door, “I have officially had enough of bodily discharges today.”

  Once it’s passed my lips, I wish I hadn’t said it. This isn’t a day to be tempting fate.

  A few hours (and much soap and scalding water) later, I finally cook my pork tenderloin. But something seems slightly off. I keep wrinkling my nose suspiciously, checking the bottom of my shoes, having a quick look into the next room. There’s nothing, but the habit persists. I realize my sensory lobes may have been ever so slightly traumatized today.

  The behavior continues into dinner, so that finally Jeff asks, “Why are you sniffing like that? What do you smell?”

  “Never mind,” I say. “It’s really best if you don’t know.”

  And I’ll tell you what: I’m not much liking the look of that mascarpone sauce either.

  CHAPTER 15

  Magic Time

  One last outdoor trial to cap the season. Another chance at coupling our jumpers title with a standard title. A mere baby step toward becoming a champ but a maddeningly elusive one. I’m sitting in the shade of Betsy’s “easy up”—a kind of tent without tent flaps—and the air is mild and crisp.

  As we sit gabbing, a small, wiry woman walks by, wearing a tracksuit seemingly made from the same material as FedEx envelopes. She’s leading her bull terrier to the standard ring and is trilling to him in a voice that makes Minnie Mouse sound like Bea Arthur: “Come on, sweetie, it’s showtime! It’s showtime!”

  I can’t suppress a chuckle, and when the woman is out of earshot, I jerk my thumb in her direction. “There’s some serious motivation goin’ on there.”

  Dee gives me a sly look and says, “You don’t know the half of it.”

  “Hmm?” I say. “Don’t know the half of what?”

  “Her motivational techniques,” says Dee with an impish grin. “So, wait, you’ve really never heard this before? You don’t know about Joellen?”

  I sometimes forget that Dee knows virtually everyone on the agility circuit. And by “knows” them, I mean has them pegged, categorized, and nailed down tight. And by the way she’s said the name Joellen, I can tell there is infamy in it.

  “No, I don’t know her,” I say, shifting expectantly in my seat. “Is that a trademark of hers? The ‘showtime’ thing?”

  “Yes,” Dee replies, and she leans in a little, a conspiratorial move that thrills me utterly. “But what’s way more interesting is that before ‘showtime,’ there’s ‘magic time.’ ”

  “ ‘Magic time,’ ” I repeat slowly, with emphasis.

  She nods. “Mm-hmm.”

  I wait for more, but clearly she’s going to make me earn my gratification by supplying the correct prompts. And I’m just stubborn enough not to want to. So I hold off a moment, wondering if her eagerness to tell me will overtake her desire for me to beg.

  And then someone new pops her head in to say hello—someone from outside the All Fours “family”—and the moment is lost. Dee’s attention turns to the newcomer, who trails a pair of nervous Havanese whose thrusting about sets off all the other dogs in their crates. I end up removing Dusty from
the confusion, and the “magic time” thread is irretrievably lost.

  I don’t even recall it myself until later in the day, when I’m on my way to the Porta-Johns. To my dismay, I find three people in line waiting for one of the two units to become available. That’s not really a lot of people—unless you’re really singin’ the “Burstin’ Bladder Blues.” Which, at this moment, I am. I honestly cannot wait. And given my extreme aversion to the condition of the average Porta-John several hours into its daylong lifespan, I decide to avail myself of nature’s bountiful flora to accomplish my task.

  There’s a ring of shrubbery not far off, around a small, still pond—it’s the only cover around, and rather obvious, so the risk of discovery isn’t small. But I only need about ninety seconds, so I figure what the hell.

  I’m just enjoying the floaty feeling that comes with having lessened the pressure on the kidneys by a factor of ten when I hear something not far: a familiar, piping kind of singsong: “Come on, honey! It’s magic time!”

  I move aside a branch and peer through the intervening foliage. I see Joellen, and her bull terrier, and I realize I’ve stumbled onto the elusive secret of magic time.

  And what I see—well.

  Well.

  Joellen is doing something to her dog.

  Something that he, lacking an opposable thumb, can’t do for himself.

  He seems to enjoy it, wiggling his legs and huffing. And the way she’s working her wrist, I can tell she’s done this many times before.

  For a few brutal moments I’m absolutely mesmerized, but I certainly don’t want to stick around to witness the happy ending. I bustle from the bushes and skipper back to the tent rather determinedly.

  By some fluke of fate, I find Dee alone. She looks at me a bit perplexedly—possibly my face registers some kind of unease—and I blurt, “Is that even legal?”

  “What?” she asks.

  I screw up my face. “Magic time!”

  “Oh,” she says, with a wry smile. “Someone told you?”

  “No no. I just stumbled across the free demo.”

  Dee whistles. “Well, that puts you a leg up on the rest of us.”

  “Don’t say ‘leg up,’ ” I beg her, and I lower myself back into my chair. Still flailing for some way to express my horror and astonishment, I say, “Why does she do this thing?”

  Dee shrugs. “She says it calms him down.”

  “Calms him . . .” Again words fail me. I feel like I need a new language, something beyond English or any other terrestrial tongue, to express what I’m feeling. Like something from On Beyond Zebra! “Next we have kwiff / You can look it right up / Kwiff stands for kwiffenzip / That’s palmin’ your pup.”

  “But,” I continue, “wouldn’t you want your dogs to be a little pumped up, a little eager, when you’re running the course? Seems to me calmness would be a disadvantage.”

  “She says it helps him focus. Takes away any interest he might have in following scents on the course or being distracted by what’s going on in the other ring.”

  I start to speak, but first glance over my shoulder to make sure Joellen isn’t within earshot. “It’s okay,” Dee tells me. “You don’t have to worry about her hearing you. Heck, she’ll tell you all about it herself. How’d you think I found out?”

  “You’re kidding. She openly admits it?”

  “Brags about it.” Dee can’t help laughing at how unsettled I am.

  I decide to take Dusty for a walk and try to regain my sense of, well, reality. As I zip him out of his crate, I can’t help recalling the several occasions I’ve caught him wiggling around on his back, enjoying a good, solid erection. The sight of that quivering appendage—it looks like a lipstick twisted all the way out of its tube—is alarming enough; the idea of actually grabbing hold of it and gettin’ down to business is just flat-out unimaginable. I can’t think of anything more perverse.

  But am I being too fainthearted? I’m accustomed to thinking of my dogs as companions: entities analogous, if not equal, to myself. Any sort of sexual contact with them would therefore seem to be an expression of that relationship. But would it have to be? I’ve often noted that people who work with animals tend to regard them more as biological constructs than reflections of their own identities. Even certain agility people are like this. At my very first trial, on a sweltering summer day in July, a woman I was chatting with (about the heat, of course) excused herself to go apply some ice to her dog’s testicles. I found this startling on two counts: First, the idea of groping around Grifter’s gonads just isn’t something to be tossed off casually in conversation. Second, if anyone ever slapped an ice pack to my own sack of sixpence I’d likely launch right into the next county.

  And yet, the more I thought about it the more sense it made. The skin of the scrotum is very thin, so the fastest way to cool the entire bloodstream would be to do so from that locality. A dog owner should approach these things practically, shouldn’t he? Animals have no sense of squeamishness over body parts or bodily functions, no concept of privacy or modesty. They can’t be offended. Surely Joellen’s solution to her dog’s agility problem is predicated on nothing more than rational expediency. There’s nothing prurient or salacious in it; it’s—therapeutic. Or so I tell myself.

  I’m just leading Dusty past the ring when I notice that Joellen is now running, and I’m compelled to stop and watch. Almost immediately I sense trouble; her dog is loping along, obviously enjoying himself tremendously, and certainly he’s not fixed on any distractions within the ring or without. But just as noticeably he’s not fixed on Joellen—at least, not to the degree he should be. He’s missing any sense of urgency, of mission, which, given what he’s apparently just been through, isn’t hard to imagine. If I were in a similar situation—asked to slip on some Nikes and jump a bunch of hurdles right after someone’s gone and flown me to the moon—I’m guessing I wouldn’t set any land speed records.

  In fact the dog is sloppy, eventually cutting it too close and dropping a bar, instantly NQ’ing. Not that he cares; he keeps sailing along, smiling widely, his tongue lolling lazily in the breeze. He’s the picture of amused contentment, not competitive zeal. Joellen, to her credit, runs him through the rest of the course anyway—actual ring experience is rare enough that you shouldn’t bail on it even after you’re out of the running. In that respect, she’s not a complete lunatic.

  All the same, what the hell is she thinking? I find myself wondering this again as she hooks up her dog at the finish gate and turns our way. She’s heading directly for us; in fact she’s going to pass right by me. I realize I can find out what’s going on in her mind just by asking her. Dee says she’s only too happy to discuss “magic time.” Accordingly, I start rehearsing my opening gambit: “Excuse me, ma’am, my name is Rob. I wonder if I might ask you about your unusual method of preperformance stress relief . . .”

  I clear my throat as she comes parallel to me; she even looks me in the eye and smiles. But I can’t bring myself to speak. A moment later, she’s moved on and the opportunity has vanished. And really, it’s just as well I didn’t introduce myself.

  Not entirely keen to shake her hand.

  CHAPTER 16

  Alley Oops

  As a dog walker of some years’ experience, I’ve acquired a kind of sixth sense—an ability to predict potential trouble before it’s otherwise perceptible. It’s an especially vital attribute when you’re walking more than one animal at the same time. I’m almost prescient in my awareness of threats that lurk around corners, whether they take the form of bicycles (why, oh why, do people persist in riding them on sidewalks?), large gangs of stampeding kids, or (most perilous of all) stray dogs.

  As a result, I’ve been able to steer clear of some highly dicey situations, something my dogs don’t always appreciate (Dusty in particular—he always prefers to confront danger head-on). But the law of averages is against you in the long run. If you walk your dogs every day, three times a day, in a city neighborh
ood teeming with hazards, eventually you’ll run smack into something nasty. And odds are you won’t be ready for it.

  Take today. Our walk starts out as usual, with Dusty pulling ahead of me, Carmen lagging behind. This can make them a bit difficult to maneuver, especially since, as herding dogs, they periodically circle around me before resuming their preferred positions. It’s a juggling act, but I’ve gotten pretty good at it. Though from afar, I’m sure I look like a Radio City chorus girl. A better solution would be to take them separately, but that would double my walk time from one hour to two.

  Suddenly, I spot another dog walker coming at us from the opposite direction. This isn’t always a red flag; Carmen loves meeting new friends, and I can easily restrain Dusty while she makes her introductions. But there’s a premonitory tickle at the base of my skull: something about the approaching dog—big, brown, rangy—is warning me off a close encounter.

  No big deal. This kind of thing happens all the time. And the good thing about city neighborhoods is that there’s always somewhere else to go: across the street, around the corner, or, in this case, up an alley. I don’t usually go in for alleys—the dogs find the spilled garbage much more fascinating than I’d like—but they’ll do in a pinch. And this is a pinch.