Dogged Pursuit Read online

  The tire: A big rubber tire is suspended in a frame, and in order to qualify a dog has to leap through it—sort of like Siegfried and Roy’s tigers hurtling through a hoop, albeit without the fire. As with the jumps, the tire can be raised or lowered, from eight to twenty-four inches, to accommodate different sized dogs.

  The teeter (also known as a seesaw): Pretty similar to the device you rode on as a kid, only without seats. It’s anywhere between ten and twelve feet long. The dog is required to ascend the weighted end, then descend once she’s past the midpoint and her own weight causes the other side to lower. Often when a very small dog tackles this obstacle, her weight proves insufficient to lower the far end until she’s were well past the axis; this results in quite an unnerving slam. Dusty liked the teeter least, for this very reason. I think the first time he did it, it scared him out of a year’s growth, which, being a Sheltie, he could ill afford.

  The tunnel: A large tube, ten to twenty feet long and about two feet in diameter, made of vinyl stretched over a wire ribbing so that it can be bent into a U and shortened or lengthened as desired. Dogs must simply go in one end and come out the other. But when the tunnel is curved, and the end isn’t visible from the entry, many dogs instinctively balk. Sometimes a shy dog will choose to go in and not come out again, in which case her handler often has to crawl in after her. For this reason, I strongly advise against the wearing of short shorts.

  The chute (also called the “collapsed tunnel”): A large cylinder, with a two-foot-wide opening, connected to an expanse of canvas or cloth about twelve feet long. The dog has to barrel through this, essentially blind since the canvas is clinging to her. Sometimes a dog panics, tries to back up, and gets tangled in the fabric and starts to thrash. This can be a little upsetting to more sensitive souls. Try not to whimper; the larger dogs might sense your weakness and devour you (larger handlers too).

  The table: Sometimes called the “pause table,” because it’s where you direct your dog to stop and sit (or to assume a down position—the judge decides which at the beginning of a run). It can be tough to get a dog to break her momentum and remain still for what feels like a small eternity while the judge counts down from five. The table is about three feet square, and the height is adjustable. For some reason, certain dogs like to take a dump on this obstacle. I guess they figure, as long as they’re up there doing nothing . . .

  The weave poles: As described in the last chapter, these consist of a row of upright poles, about three feet high and spaced twenty inches apart, through which the dog maneuvers, slalom fashion. In competition the number of poles varies from six to twelve. The dog must always enter the poles with her left shoulder and exit with her right. This is one of the most difficult obstacles to teach a dog, because all the others involves skills she already possesses: all dogs jump, climb, burrow, and so on, but weaving between objects is an entirely new concept to the canine mind. In fact it’s so difficult that a dog who successfully learns to weave on her handler’s right may have to be retrained from scratch to do it on her left—which can make a grown handler break down and cry. Not that that’s what I did. I’m just sayin’.

  The good thing about these obstacles is that once you’ve got them down, you’re set. They’re the building blocks of every course you will ever run, from this point forward till the crack of doom (unless you compete outside the AKC, where you might find yourself faced with a swing plank or a crawl tunnel or, hell, for all I know platform diving and a javelin toss). Once you’ve mastered these ten obstacles, you’ll spend the rest of your agility career working on the spaces between them—figuring out how best to guide your dog from one to the other with increasing speed and precision. You’ll work endlessly on refining your gestures and commands and on honing the rapport with your dog that eventually turns you from two flailing bodies into a single cohesive unit: fast, fluid, and completely in synch. Ideally, anyway. We all still have our moments when we flop around like a fish on a pier.

  The bad thing about the obstacles is that it’s not all that easy to master them. There are any number of factors working against you, including your dog’s size (when facing the narrow plank of the dog walk, a larger dog tends to resemble a bear on a tight-rope), weight (heavier dogs have a harder time getting up the momentum to ascend the A-frame), and speed (more gung-ho dogs, like border collies, tend to overshoot the table or leap off the teeter or A-frame before having fully completed it). There are also setbacks due to accidents (getting tangled in the chute or falling off one of the taller obstacles can make a dog reluctant ever to go near them again), and of course there’s always the issue of the dog’s character (she might, for instance, be easily distracted or excessively timid or too fixated on the other dogs in the room).

  But with patience and diligence—and a coach of genius, like Dee—you can overcome any difficulty and get your dog to the place you need her to be. One of the keys, of course, is knowing what her incentive is—what you can offer her in exchange for performing the way you want her to. For most dogs, it’s food. With a treat in my hand, I could get Carmen to do anything. Anything . She’d go up and down an A-frame a dozen times in a row. She’d teeter till she tottered. She’d do back flips. She’d dial up a restaurant and book a table. In French.

  Some dogs respond better to other stimuli. For example, many handlers bring a favorite pull toy to class with them, and at the end of a particular task reward their dogs with a brisk tugging session. Others throw a toy for the dog to retrieve. This seems to work best with retrievers, unsurprisingly. Some handlers find it sufficient simply to go in for a bit of playful roughhousing.

  For Dusty, there was nothing. He responded to no incentive known to man. At home he liked food well enough, and was known to enjoy a bit of tugging. He’d even chase a ball now and then, with every appearance of emotional investment. And despite being only nineteen pounds, he liked it when I roughed him up a bit—flipped him on his back and ruffled his fur, and then tossed him aside like a bag of laundry. He’d scrabble up again and come charging back for more.

  In class, however, his shutdown was so complete that none of these could rouse his notice, much less his interest. I tried cooking frankfurters and dicing them, then sticking them beneath his snout before working a particular obstacle. He’d give an obligatory sniff, as though obliged to by his DNA, then dismissively swivel his head away—leaving me with an oh-so-appealing handful of gristle and grease.

  Likewise he turned up his nose at his favorite toys, the ones that, at home, he most liked to gnaw on and shake. And the one time I tried to praise him by grabbing him and slapping him around, he gave me a look of the sheerest horror, as though I were publicly ravishing him.

  Dee was adamant. “You have to figure out what motivates him,” she repeated time and again. “There must be something.” But as weeks turned into months she dropped the subject, perhaps because—somehow, inexplicably—Dusty improved. It wasn’t a miracle on the Our Lady of Fátima scale, but it felt damn close. He did what he was told. He jumped when I said “over,” climbed the frame when I said “frame,” came when I said “here,” and plopped on the table when I said “down.” He never once seemed to enjoy it—never got that look of wild delirium that comes over most dogs when they’re performing at their peak—but I couldn’t fault him otherwise. Maybe, I thought, if we just keep at it, the joy will come. Maybe he’ll have an epiphany and his face will light up at the very sight of a wing jump. Or maybe I’m just a pageant mom.

  In the meantime, he had most of the obstacles down solid (though the teeter remained touch and go). He stuck with me when we ran a course and kept a steady pace. There were worse dogs in the class, certainly—though most of them dropped out after a term or two. Dusty and I just kept going. Perhaps inevitably, Dee started applying some gentle pressure: “So when are you gonna run him? There’s nothing like the experience of an actual competition to sharpen your skills.” And equally inevitably, I found myself wavering. I’d wanted Dusty to be champions
hip material before we began our quest to ascend the sport’s highest pinnacle, but perhaps Dee was right—you don’t achieve that kind of proficiency in the classroom, only in the ring.

  And then one day, at the end of a lesson, she mentioned an upcoming trial in Crystal Lake. I’d been to that area many times with Jeffrey, who grew up just one township over, in rural Woodstock. Perhaps it was just this sliver of familiarity that made the prospect of competing suddenly more inviting.

  I decided what the hell. We were ready.

  And we were.

  We are.

  After a year and a half of training, we’re ready.

  Part Two

  CHAPTER 6

  A Measure of Difficulty

  On the road to our first trial. The drive is long and monotonous. To fill the time I listen to orchestral music—the kind of epic-length compositions that require sitting in place for a long spell, a luxury modern life doesn’t often afford. I haven’t listened to much serious music since college, when I thought that Schoenberg and Thelonious Monk were going to change the world. Instead, thirty years later, all that’s changed is me—a harried middle-aged man trying to squeeze in some reconnection with the infinite as I hurtle past cornfields on my way to chase glory with my dog. And all in vain: as a child of the TV age, everything I hear comes across as a soundtrack. While listening to Aaron Copland’s Billy the Kid suite, my mind drifts to the characters on Deadwood.

  Eventually, we arrive at the Regional Sports Center, an indoor facility that ordinarily hosts soccer and basketball games. It’s a shame the trial’s not set up outdoors—it’s a breezy, balmy September day—but as I unload Dusty’s crate and my canvas chair from the trunk and tote them inside, I realize this may be a blessing. In a show of team spirit, I’ve chosen to wear my All Fours Agility Team microfiber polo shirt, which was offered in only black. The fabric seems instantly to soak up all the available sun and magnify its warmth by a factor of ten. Sweat prickles up all over my body; within moments my face and back are streaming. If I were wearing this outside, I’d dehydrate in twenty minutes. The garment’s much-touted wicking technology would essentially wick me away to a husk.

  I run into Dee as soon as I enter; her ponytail swings briskly as she bustles across the facility. “Oh, good, you’ve got a tarp,” she says, noticing the crinkly brown roll under my arm. “We can expand our turf.”

  “Turf ” is our share of the crating area, which covers one of the complex’s three courts. Tarps or mats are required so that the crates don’t damage the floor, but they serve an additional, territorial purpose: by spreading them across the available space, we claim it for ourselves. This is important, because at indoor trials crating space is almost always at a premium. At peak hours it can be like Filene’s Basement on bridal-sale day. And given that this is where the group will hang out during the competition, snacking and gabbing and comparing notes on our runs, we like to have a little leg room. What’s more, it’s Friday, meaning some people are at work today and won’t be arriving till tomorrow. Got to save some space for them.

  Dee leads me to the All Fours enclave, where a couple of colleagues are already encamped. But they’re all running their dogs in the “excellent” class—the highest of three levels of competition—which makes them not so much colleagues as upperclassmen. They exist on a whole different experiential plane than I do. I don’t yet know who, if anyone, will be competing with me in the novice class.

  I unfurl my tarp adjacent to the others, set up my crate and chair on its far corner, and then dash back to the car and collect Dusty, who’s sitting in a pool of his own drool. He’s clearly suffering some serious anxiety, but after a short walk in the parking lot (during which he contentedly sniffs the filthy pavement as I attempt not to think about the quasi-toxic crud that’s ground into the concrete), he seems calmer—he’s even smiling. But it’s a ghastly smile, the kind you’d wear if someone you loathe showed up at your door uninvited.

  When I think he’s regained his equilibrium, I take him inside. Immediately, we’re swarmed by dogs and handlers of all sizes—cigarette-thin men with gaunt-looking greyhounds, plus-sized gals trailing tiny papillons, metalheads with mastiffs, dykes with Dalmatians, huskies with huskies, and every other breed and body type imaginable, in every conceivable combination. A full third of the dogs are announcing their presence to the world in a cacophony of yelps, howls, snarls, and cries punctuated by sharp staccato barking. The density of the crowd is incredible, the clamor overwhelming, and I can only imagine the smell: a potent mixture of airborne hormones and tangy urine, thankfully beyond the feeble range of human detection but an overpowering wallop to canine nostrils.

  I look down at Dusty. He seems about to swoon. Part of me would like to sweep him up in my arms and carry him above the fray, protect him. But that won’t do. The boy is an athlete now. He’s got to learn to man up. (Or dog up. Whatever.) I shorten the leash, command him to heel, and set out to take a look around the place.

  The action has already begun on the courts set aside for competition. As in every AKC agility trial, there are two discrete rings: one, called “standard,” is devoted to courses that incorporate all ten obstacles; the other, “jumpers with weaves” (just “jumpers” among the cognoscenti), sticks to, you guessed it, jumps and weaves (though a tunnel somehow always manages to sneak in).

  Each course is designed by the judge who will preside over it; it is subsequently built by a staff of volunteers. There are usually a dozen to eighteen obstacles on any given course, and judges vary in how creatively they arrange them. They must also provide three variations of each course design, with differing degrees of difficulty, for the three separate classes, which are based on skill level: excellent, open, and novice. After each class runs, adjustments are made for the following group. Almost every trial begins with excellent, I suppose so that the elite competitors can leave when they’re finished and enjoy the rest of the day. We novice handlers, by comparison, have to stick it out to the very end, when even the vendors have packed up and skedaddled.

  Having scoped out the two rings, I pause to watch a few of the excellent teams run the jumpers course. Some, I’m glad to say, are as distracted and insubordinate as novices. I see dogs pull up short before taking an obstacle; this is called a “refusal.” Others go for a different obstacle altogether, which is called an “off course.” Both these faults detract from the total score. But most of the excellent dogs are really, well, excellent. They gracefully follow their handlers from the first obstacle to the last, and do it well under the time set by the judge. Their prowess is enviable. When you take first place in excellent, it means something.

  I move on to the check-in table and get my armband. I also pick up some maps of the novice courses so I can study them while I’m waiting. It helps to go over them a few times on paper to determine in advance how best to approach your run: Start with the dog on your left or your right? Cross in front or behind, and where? That type of thing. Strategy.

  From there we move on to our first big challenge: getting Dusty’s official jump-height card—which will involve Dusty’s height being measured, which will involve Dusty being touched by another human being.

  There’s no getting around it. If he doesn’t go through this, any scores he earns today won’t be recognized by the AKC. So I crouch down, give his ruff a good scratching, and say, “Be brave, okay? Big guy? For me.” And then I take him to the measuring table.

  The woman in charge is one of those bespectacled, no-nonsense gals whose pink sweaters and henna highlights shouldn’t fool you at all; they are military creatures down to the cellular level. I have to wait my turn as she crisply maneuvers her sliding scale to the withers of, first, a flat-coated retriever and then a keeshond, both of whom good-naturedly cooperate. There’s an assembly-line efficiency to the proceedings, which is obviously the way she likes it. I begin to feel a slight sense of dread.

  “Next,” she says, as the keeshond spryly dismounts.

 
; I hand her my form, then tell Dusty, “Up, boy,” and give him a gentle tug. He backs away and tries to wriggle out of his collar. “No no,” I say. “Come on, boy, up, up.”

  He squirms even more frantically; he’s working himself into a panic. In the meantime the table is empty, the clock is ticking, and there are three other people behind me with dogs waiting to be measured. “Hold on,” I tell the woman with a forced smile, but in the split second I’m facing her Dusty gives one last contortion and frees himself from the collar. For a moment he’s dazed by his success and just sits there blinking.

  The woman waves the dog behind me onto the table while muttering something I don’t quite catch and probably don’t want repeated. I grab Dusty just as he begins to slink away, reattach his collar, and get back at the head of the line. When the table opens up again, I take no chances, physically carrying him over and placing him atop it. “It’s okay, boy,” I tell him as his pupils dilate. “It’s fine. Everything’s fine.”

  “He needs to be standing upright,” says the woman with all the bedside manner of George S. Patton. I get the feeling if we don’t cooperate she’ll slap me. Dusty’s back legs are splayed. I straighten them with my hands, then take his torso and align him with the scale, but when the woman extends an arm toward him, he leans into me so that he’s standing at a sixty-degree angle.

  “Upright, please,” she says, and I try to comply, I really do, but Dusty is essentially limp. I push him away from me and his knees buckle. I hold him up by the trunk and his legs collapse altogether, like a marionette’s.

  By this time there are impatient rustlings behind me, and I’m sweating so freely that my shirt can’t wick fast enough. Dusty keeps leaning into me, his terror of both the measuring device and the measurer herself steadily mounting. I’m running out of ideas. In desperation, I figure that if he doesn’t have me to lean against he won’t be able to lean at all, so I move aside. He leans anyway and plummets right off the table, landing on the floor with a whumpf.