2 Crazy Dogs

I am currently pushing fifty harder than I ever have in my life.  In less than a year I will reach the half-century mark, and this reality becomes painfully clear every time I try and bend over to put on my socks.

Just over a year ago, I was diagnosed with type II diabetes, forever dispelling the notion that I could safely spend the rest of my life reclining lazily on the couch while slurping cheese whiz right out of the can.

That is actually a tad hyperbolic.  Cheese whiz would be healthier than the crap I have actually been stuffing into my body the last few decades.  I am a confirmed sugar addict, and I have been known to eat an entire bag of candy easter eggs in one sitting.  You may be familiar with the ones I’m talking about, covered with a candy shell and filled with a substance that is not only NOT found in Nature, but with which Nature would have no idea to do if it did find it.

After several months of feeling lousy, drinking gallons of water and making frequent trips to the bathroom, I gave in and went to see the doctor to find out if I was indeed suffering from the malady that I had been dreading since childhood, ever since I first heard the word “diabetes” when my mother explained why my uncle couldn’t eat birthday cake. 

No cake!  EVER!  A fate worse than death.

So it turned out that I did have diabetes, as well as a triglyceride level sufficient to light up a stadium.  I was given a prescription for Metformin and told I would have to take it for the rest of my life. 

I was always planning on taking better care of myself at some point in my life, but this news shocked me out of my complacency.  I quickly made appointments with a nutritionist and began the task of changing my lifestyle.  I cut sugar out of my diet completely, as well as anything besides fresh fruit that tasted sweet.  The first few weeks were the hardest, as I had never noticed until now how prominently the pop tarts and cookies and cupcakes were displayed in the supermarket.  Then came the holidays, and my favorite treat, egg nog, hit the shelves.  It was almost more than I could bear.

But, bear it I did, and with my new diet and an exercise program, I have lost 35 pounds and brought the sugar and grease level in my blood back down to normal levels.  Recently, I even stopped taking Metformin, the medication I was supposed to be on the rest of my life.

As a part of this lifestyle change, Cherise stepped in and insisted that I take a more active role in working with the dogs.

And so, I now find myself less than a week away from participating in my first agility trial.  Probably more remarkable than my late arrival to this sport is that of Mallory, my canine partner in this endeavor, for whom this is also a first.  Mallory is nine, which in human years is…let’s see…divide by four, carry the two…

Really, really old.

Did I mention she had knee surgery a few years ago?  That’s right, the YOUNGER version of Mallory was as gimpy as a knock-kneed ostrich.  Like many humans of an athletic bent, she was forced to undergo surgery to repair her ACL — or what would be her ACL if she were human (in dogs it’s called the CCL).  Knowing she would try to scratch the surgery site, the vet’s office equipped her with an extra-large Collar of Shame, which, being a Border Collie, she quickly fashioned into a crude tool she could use to scratch the surgery site.  One massive infection and several months of recovery time later, she was as good as new, although she no longer gets up off the floor unless there’s something REALLY interesting motivating her. 

Once she’s on her feet, though, Mallory is as crazy as ever, and she proves it once a week in agility class.  Combining her love of barking at other dogs with her love of knocking over agility equipment, her antics provide many hours of wholesome fun to everyone involved, with the possible exception of those suffering heart attacks of rage.

Mallory, demonstrating a level of crazy most of us just dream about

Seriously, though, Mallory does pretty well for her advanced years, and often surprises me with her energy and stamina.  Now if I can figure out how to summon up some of that magic for myself this weekend, our first trial together might just be less disastrous than most of the townspeople fear.

We’ll just see, won’t we?

Day Three:

I have a theory that any given activity that someone finds worthwhile is considered a “red-headed stepchild” of some other activity.  That’s the way it is with American football and what we Americans call “soccer”, which everyone else calls football.  While we see “our” football as a natural evolution of the earlier, more pure form of the sport, just about everyone else in the world sees it as an overly complicated corruption of what they consider to be the greatest sport in the world.

Meanwhile, ancient Mayans would scoff at soccer because they use a wimpy inflatable ball instead of the decapitated head of their defeated enemy.  Plus, the losing team isn’t ritually sacrificed, as the natural order of things demands.

There is a similar relationship between rally obedience and obedience in its original form, its older, more legitimate brother.  On the morning of the third day of the trials, I spent some time watching trials in this type of obedience.  Standard (sometimes called “normal” or “real”) obedience is a solemn, somber business.  Unlike in rally obedience, handlers are to avoid giving the dog any feedback other than the robotically delivered commands telling it what to do next.  Dogs often go through the motions with all the enthusiasm of Dachau inmates shoveling gravel from one meaningless pile to another.

The concentration camp metaphor is probably a little over-the-top.  As far as I could tell, no dogs were gassed or cremated as part of the competition, although in fairness I should point out that I have no idea what went on behind the scenes.

While I watched this dreary spectacle, Cherise went shopping, as she is wont to do.  She picked up two new leashes for the dogs, despite the fact that we already have an impressive leash collection that puts the Imelda Marcos footwear stash to shame.  We have specialized leashes for walking, running, bicycling, obedience, agility, and surfing the internet. At least, I assume they cover all these activities, as it hardly seems economical to have more than one leash per dog that performs the same function.

Thus relieved of my bank account balance, I prepared once again to watch Mallory at work. It was our last chance to get out of there with some semblance of dignity intact.

It started out badly.  As Cherise had trouble getting Mallory’s attention, I mouthed, “Not again!”  Soon, however, our wayward pooch realized where she was and what she was supposed to be doing.  Despite stopping a few times to sniff and once to look around, Attention Deficit Dog wound up completing the course with reasonable competency.

We held our breath as we awaited the final verdict from the judges.  Soon, we had it:  A score of 84.  Qualifying.

We had done it!  Cherise’s patience, Mallory’s had work, and my reading had finally paid off.  After three tries, Mallory had her first leg of the advanced title. 

She didn’t come close to the top three scores, though, so we made do with a tiny little ribbon signifying our lack of failure.  It was enough.  Breathing a sigh of relief, we loaded up our kennels, chairs, and dogs, and prepared to clear out of the EXPO! once and for all.

On the way out, we cut through the plaza, and discovered that Shiner was afraid of large expanses of concrete.

I like to think I’ve learned a lot from my seven years of border collie ownership. Cherise and I have taken the dogs to countless training sessions, we’ve read many books on dog behavior and ethology, and we’ve even gone to a few workshops and conferences. I can tell a lot about a dog by its body language. I know when my dogs are anxious, frustrated, or fearful, and I know what to do when I see it.

Given all this, I am sometimes amazed at how stupid I can be.

A few years ago I was at a party at the home of my nephew, celebrating his birthday. As I explored the house, I came across his dog Rolf, a large Weinereimer mix. Rolph was sitting there eyeing me warily, when I decided, against every principle of human-dog interaction that I knew, that it would be a good idea to go tromping brainlessly up to him and pat him briskly on the head, saying something idiotic like, “NICE DOGGIE, DERP!”

Now, you have to understand what this looks like to a dog. Here is this strange person, invading your living space and reeking of a hellish blend of weird odors (just for the record, it wasn’t anything a human would notice). As if that weren’t enough, this moron comes right at you, making eye contact and generally shouting, with his body language, “I’M GOING TO KILL YOU AND STEAL YOUR BED AND DOG TOYS!!!”

Then, as if THAT weren’t enough, he reaches back behind your field of vision, his hand where you can’t see it, and begins thumping you vigorously on the cranium.

What would YOU do? Yes, that’s exactly what Rolf did…he bit the crap out of my hand.

I returned to the party, clutching my hand and wondering how I could graciously say, “Well, it’s been fun, and I hate to leave so early, but the flesh has been ripped from the bone and I must be popping off to the hospital now!” On the other hand (get it?), I also didn’t want to continue on as if nothing had happened and wait for some party guest to scream in horror upon seeing me casually toss back a ginger ale with a mangled and bleeding hand.

I worried about dripping blood on the new rug, but when I saw no blood I very cautiously examined my hand to assess the damage. There was, in fact, no bleeding, not even a mark where Rolf’s teeth had clamped down.

It’s amazing how much pain a dog can inflict without actually doing any damage. Or perhaps I’m just a wimp and have no tolerance for pain.

At any rate, I knew immediately that I had been a world-class idiot. I KNEW not to approach an unfamiliar dog like that (especially a big one!), and I KNEW that dogs, in general, do not like being patted on the head. In fact, some trainers recommend this as a method for getting an overly playful dog to go away and stop bothering you, already.

There have been many examples of this kind of idiocy with our own dogs. Way back in the old days when we had our Sheltie, Megan, Cherise and I were out for a walk when a stray cat followed us home. Of course, we instantly thought: “I bet Megan would like to meet a stray cat!” So, as soon as we got home, we went inside, grabbed Megan, and triumphantly plopped her in front of this strange animal we knew nothing about.

Of course, this happened late at night, so, long story short, we had to take Megan to the after-hours emergency vet. Cha-ching!

I wish I could count the number of times Cherise and I had some disaster take place involving our dogs, then immediately looked at each other and said, “Well THAT was stupid!” Rope-burn from a carelessly handled leash and overly-excited border collie? Check. Letting the dogs loose and assuming they’ll come back? Check. Feeding the dogs ten pounds of rotten chicken? Check. Blundering into a dogfight while walking the dog? Well, I don’t remember this specifically happening, but it sure sounds like something I would do.

Most recently, I was watching TV in the den while playing catch with Shiner. I’m sure all of you dog owners is familiar with this game: The dog brings you some old, weathered dog toy encrusted with what appears to be centuries of dog spit, you throw it, and he brings it back to you. If you decide to stop playing, the dog puts it in your lap or shoves it in your face, whichever is more convenient. If you take the toy away and put it out of reach, he simply wanders off and finds something even more disgusting to bring you.

I know better than to play this game with Shiner. I know that what you’re really doing is caving in to his demands that you play with him right here, right now, which is not the sort of thing you want to do if you intend to continue being the one who sleeps in a bed and has dominion over the remote control. In short, it’s a dominance issue, and it’s the owner’s responsibility to make sure the dog understands that the owner will determine when it’s time to play, not the dog. Because the dog will pick times that are extremely inconvenient for you, such as during a football game or a wake.

I know this stuff.

If you’ve learned anything about me by now, however, it’s that knowing something doesn’t seem to have any effect whatsoever in how I behave.

And so, predictably, I spent about thirty minutes tossing a particularly bouncy ball to Shiner, occassionally glancing over from the TV to watch his antics as the ball bounced off of walls, furniture, and various breakable objects, and he followed it close behind.

I could have done this for days on end with nothing bad happening. That doesn’t make it any less stupid.

Shiner, being an extremely athletic dog, loves to leap up into the air and twist his body around while snapping at balls, frisbees, or whatever happens to be flying past him. Occassionally, he’ll come down awkwardly and flop around on the ground for a while before getting to his feet again, but he has never suffered any ill effects.

Until now.

As he had done many times before, Shiner came down from one of his mid-air retrieval attempts and landed with his feet not quite under him. This time, though, he immediately slipped on the linoleum floor, crumpled to the ground, and began yiping in pain.

I jumped up quickly and came to his aid. I helped him to his feet and noticed immediately that he was pulling his right hind leg up close to his body, as if protecting it. He had quieted down by this point, so I began gently squeezing parts of his foot and leg to see if I could determine where the tenderness was. Shiner was silent, not reacting at all to my examination. I finally let him go to see if he had any trouble getting around.

As it turned out, Shiner had no trouble at all getting around. Unfortunately, he was doing it on three legs.

I knew I was in trouble. Cherise had been working hard on Shiner’s agility and herding skills, and had been making great progress. Now, I had broken him.

Before long, Shiner was putting weight on his injured leg, but still walked with a noticeable limp. Cherise announced she was going to take him to the vet the next morning, and I was in no position to argue.

The next day, the verdict was in: Shiner had dislocated his kneecap. The vet explained to Cherise exactly how such injuries happen and how the dog reacts when it does, and what he described matched exactly what I had witnessed the previous night. He said that Shiner’s muscles in his hind legs were so strong, they almost immediately pulled the kneecap back into position, but it was still going to take some time for the ligaments to tighten up again and the inflammation to go down.

Once again I felt stupid (I didn’t even know dogs HAD kneecaps!). It had never occured to me that having a dog jumping and cavorting on a slippery linoleum floor wasn’t a good idea, but clearly, it wasn’t. Now we had to pay the price: One week of cage rest for Shiner, which is as about as easy to achieve as putting a tornado into a bottle.

Or so I thought. Shiner actually handled it very well and didn’t become antsy until his week was almost up. I really think I had more of a problem with his enforced convalescence than he did.

Unfortunately, he has to take a break from dog sports for the next several weeks. For that period of time, I will have to endure offhand comments from Cherise about how this whole mess is delaying Shiner’s development, and it’s all my fault, and how I’m clearly the weak link in our marriage, etc., etc. I’m used to that sort of thing, and it usually goes away when I get her to eat something.

I can’t help pondering the irony, though. Shiner has performed amazing acrobatic feats catching frisbees, running a lure course, and jumping through obstacles on the agility field. And how does he hurt his leg? Chasing a ball in the friggin’ LIVING ROOM.

I blame myself. I’m supposed to be the one with the big brain. Sometimes, though, I really have to wonder.

For decades, the AKC has recognized the sport of lure coursing for sight hounds — dogs such as greyhounds, whippets, afghans, and other freakishly long-legged, deep-chested dogs. The sport consists of chasing a “bunny”, which is usually a plastic grocery bag, around a course. The “bunny” is attached to a line that is pulled through a system of pullies on a continuous loop in whatever configuration the organizers decide upon.

Until recently, only sight hounds could participate. Breeds such as border collies, german shepherds, doberman pinschers, and (mercifully) pugs, were prevented from competing.

Now, that has changed. A special category of lure coursing has now been created to accommodate those genetically-challenged dogs that might be interested despite not falling into the giant, four-legged tarantula category. The initial trial for such dogs is called the CAT…the Coursing Ability Test.

Cherise, naturally, was unable to resist signing Shiner and Mallory up for the opportunity to do something they had never done before. I’m speaking of lure coursing, of course; humiliating us in front of a large group of people is something they’ve done many times.

So we loaded up the dogs and brought them out to Hutto, Texas (home of the Hutto Hippos, in case the plethora of concrete hippos in front of every business in town confuses you as to which high school football team they support there).

We had absolutely no idea what to expect, so Cherise and I initially just wandered around trying to get our bearings. There was a large field with some people sitting in lawn chairs looking official. There were also a number of spindly-legged hounds being led around by their handlers, leading us to believe we were somewhere in the vicinity of the right place. (There was a trial for “normal” sight hounds that morning.)

At first I didn’t see any infrastructure that could support any sort of mechanical bunny racing about. Upon closer inspection, though, I saw a strange contraption set up in the field which looked like the sort of thing Rube Goldberg would have come up with, had he been an electrical engineer.

The dreaded apparatus

In time, we got organized enough to get ourselves on the schedule for the trials later that afternoon. In the meantime, we got the dogs out of the kennel and led them over to the field so they could see what was involved in this new sport. There were still a couple of greyhounds and afghans competing, so we tried our best to get our pups lined up so that some of the excitement might inadvertantly pass in front of their eyeballs.

We needn’t have worried. The two dogs immediately spotted the activity out on the field and became visibly excited. Soon we were forced to put them away again as they threatened to disrupt the entire operation with their bouncing and barking.

Before long, the handlers of all the fancy sight hounds loaded up in their Winnebagoes and converted buses and moved on to the next trial. Now, it was our turn.

The non-sight-hound coursing is definitely less formal than the traditional kind, as the formerly pristine field was soon littered with lawn chairs, coolers, and of course, many different types of dogs. We took our place right behind the Contraption and prepared to watch the show.

There were two classes of dogs; those under twelve inches OR with a flat face (or both), and those over twelve inches with a normal dog nose. The first class only had to run 300 yards within 90 seconds, while the second class, to which our dogs belonged, had to run 600 yards in 120 seconds.

The dogs were required to run “naked”, which isn’t as kinky as it sounds. They were to have no collars or other embellishments; certainly not Paris-Hilton-type sunglasses or hats. There was too much danger that these would injure the dog at the high speeds that were to be attained, although with certain dogs this was never really an issue.

When the dog was ready to run, the “huntmaster” shouted “Tallyhoe!”

(To quote Dave Barry: I am not making this up.)

The dog was then released and…well, it chased the plastic grocery bags around the field until it stopped and the huntmaster said, “Recall your dog.”

If the dog refused to be recalled, the handler was subject to a 5 dollar fine and possibly being banned from future events. This was the clause that made me sit up and take notice. Both our dogs were known to refuse to be recalled once in a while.

As the first few dogs started their runs, we put Shiner and Mallory in front of us to observe. And observe they did, barking furiously. Shiner, in particular, went into Turbo-Hyperbark, and was soon displaying his patented “yarping” technique that could render a whole swarm of bats hard-of-hearing.

Cherise shouted at me to get Shiner to stop, as he would wear himself out before he got to the line. I responded by shouting that barking used considerably less energy than running, so this wasn’t really an issue. I’m afraid my argument fell on deaf ears, however. At this point, neither of us could hear anything other than a loud, persistent ringing sound.

Fortunately, we had memorized our place in line, and before we knew it Mallory was in the “hole”. From the “hole” a participant moved up to the “deck”, then to the “line”.

Cherise took Mallory first while I tried to keep Shiner from prematurely entering the fray. Despite our worst fears, Mallory had no problem recognizing the point of the game, and chased the “bunny” with great enthusiasm. Although Cherise had a little trouble getting her back, she had no problem qualifying.

Next, it was Shiner’s turn. Despite inexplicably becoming completely uninterested in the “bunny” just prior to the start, as soon as “Tallyhoe!” was heard, he lunged after the lure at top speed. At the second corner, he wiped out and fell, but soon got back to his feet and resumed the chase.

Cherise had videotaped his run, and later I was able to determine that he finished the course in 57 seconds, less than half the time allotted. I wasn’t sure if that was a good time or not, since I had nothing to compare it to. It was certainly much faster than a human could do it, though.

The next day I timed other dogs to see how Shiner measured up. The fastest dog in the field, a young blue mearle border collie, finished in about 41 seconds. I later found that greyhounds typically finish in 30 seconds or less.

Mallory made her second run and finished in about 50 seconds, faster than Shiner’s time the previous day, and faster than many of the other “over 12” dogs. Not bad for an eight-year-old.

Shiner was one of the last to go, and did much better than he did the previous day. At one point he actually caught the lure in his teeth, and it had to be sped up to keep ahead of him. He finished with a time of 46 seconds.

Shiner does CAT

In a couple of weeks there will be another such trial in Florence, Texas. We’ll be there, ready to do battle!