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  “You can just call me the most honorable and respected Hui Shih,” said a voice that I would never again equate with the Cowardly Lion.

  That night I told Joannie about Flint’s heroic deeds and mentioned that for a moment I had considered taking the orange-and-white cat home as a gift to her.

  Joan looked directly at Flint, made eye contact, and announced, “Hero or not, you’re lucky that Stan didn’t bring that cat home. That would have put you out of business. Cats not only hunt and kill mice, they eat them. That means no dead bodies to clean up and no warm, dead carcasses left on a person’s chest!”

  “But for now you still have the services and protection of the revered and esteemed Hui Shih,” said the new voice of my lion dog.

  CHAPTER 14

  COMPETITION AND CHAOS

  In late September, I was standing near the entrance to a dog show ring, Flint next to my left side, twirling around in circles to watch the other dogs passing behind and in front of him. He always spins in a clockwise direction, so every few minutes I had to loosen the leash to let it unwind so that it didn’t cut off the circulation to my hand.

  Several people from the Vancouver Dog Obedience Club were sitting next to the ringside watching the competitors in the novice class. Both Barbaras were there, as were Shirley and Emma, all sitting on folding lawn chairs. Shirley, Joannie’s longtime friend, had convinced Joan to come to view Flint’s first obedience competition and was explaining to her what was going on. A woman was starting her competition trial with her Welsh corgi, and I was wondering why I was there about to display to the world and my wife the degree of control—or, I suspect, lack of control—that I had over my little Cairn terrier.

  I was excited to share the legacy of Blanche Saunders, who had helped establish the sport of dog obedience trials in the 1930s. The exercises demonstrated what dogs could do beyond their usual jobs of hunting, herding, or guarding. The dogs that she showed were merely “companion dogs,” and the first title that a dog can earn is the CD, which stands for Companion Dog.

  Modern obedience competitions begin with novice class exercises that are designed to demonstrate that the dog is under control and has good manners. More advanced obedience degrees depend upon the owner’s ability to train the dog to do more complex tasks, some of which may look more like “tricks,” including fetching a thrown dumbbell, jumping different obstacles, obeying commands instantaneously whether the command is spoken or given by hand signal, and using his scenting abilities to find items that have been touched by his owner when put with other items.

  When casually observing dogs performing, you may have the sense that most of the dogs are working well and virtually all of them are better controlled than a typical pet. But the standards in competition are much more rigorous than those that a typical pet owner would require of his dog.

  Each time a dog enters the ring it is assigned a perfect score of 200 points. From then on, the dog can only lose points, which he does if any of his exercises is less than perfect. Judges deduct points for dogs that drift out of the perfect heeling position (by the handler’s left leg) by lagging behind or forging a few steps in front as their handler moves around the obedience ring. Dogs lose points when they sit too slowly or not at all. Any dog that moves from the position that it has been commanded to hold, or even fidgets too much, whether standing, sitting, or lying down, loses points. A dog that walks away when ordered to stay or refuses to perform a task when commanded to do so loses all the points for that exercise. Any single exercise with a zero score disqualifies the dog for that trial. In order to qualify, you have to get a score of 170 or higher and you have to qualify three times, under different judges, to earn a title. Each qualifying score is referred to as a “leg,” so a dog with an obedience title must have three legs.

  Actually the “team” of dog and handler is being evaluated, which means that the handler can also cause points to be deducted. Judges deduct points for handlers who use the leash to physically guide the dog, such as when they keep the pressure too tight or tug at the dog. They lose points or fail exercises if the handler talks to the dog during an exercise (even to give a word of praise) or if the handler gives two or more commands for a single exercise. Some judges can be quite picky about this. One competitor’s team was failed simply because the handler unconsciously nodded her head at the same time that she commanded “Come!” When asked about this, the judge simply said that the head nod “could have been an additional signal that the dog was trained to respond to.”

  In many ways the judging of a dog’s performance is much like the judging of Olympic and high-level figure skating. According to kennel club rules, “The judge must carry a mental picture of the theoretically perfect performance in each exercise and score each dog and handler against this visualized standard which shall combine the utmost in willingness, enjoyment and precision on the part of the dog, and naturalness, gentleness, and smoothness in handling.” That gives the judge a lot of leeway and certainly allows the judge’s preferences, biases, and expectations to creep into and influence the scores they assign to particular teams. Among competitors, rumors abound about “good” and “bad” judges, and the prejudices that certain of the “bad” judges are believed to have. I had been warned away from competing under one particular obedience judge, for example, because I was told that he trained retrievers and “only retrievers and sporting dogs seem to get good scores in his ring.”

  This belief in judges’ unfairness probably accounted for one particular joke around the dog show circuit. It began with the idea that God was looking for some entertainment and decided that having a dog obedience show might be fun. Since nearly all dogs go to heaven, the best competitors of all time could be found in paradise and God wanted to have them compete against each other in the same trial. So God turned to one of the archangels and told him to arrange it. A short time later Satan gets a phone call from that angel.

  Satan is puzzled and asks, “I think that a dog show would be nice, but why are you calling me? After all, all of the dogs are in heaven.”

  “I know,” replies the archangel. “However, you have all of the judges!”

  Dog obedience competitors also have preconceived notions about the merits of certain dog breeds. Earlier that day, Joan and I had gone for a cup of coffee and were returning to the obedience ring with Flint walking beside me. At this show, there were several rings where dogs were being judged for confirmation (how well they looked and moved as representatives of their breed) as well as two rings for obedience trials. All of the obedience competitors had been assigned armband numbers that were 900 or higher, so we were easy to identify. As we passed by two women, we overheard one say, “That armband is in the nine hundreds. Who in their right mind would show a Cairn terrier in obedience?”

  Both women chuckled. Unfortunately, Joan overheard them and asked me, “Do you really want to go through with this? He’s not ready. I don’t know if he’ll ever be ready.”

  “It’s just a dog show,” I reassured her, “and the worst thing that could happen would be that we would fail to get a qualifying score.”

  Joan did not look reassured and was already uncomfortable feeling that people were staring at her because she was walking next to me and my “inappropriate” obedience dog breed.

  My attention was drawn back to the woman with the corgi. After she and two more dogs finished in the ring, it would be our turn.

  The judge said, “The first exercise is the heel on leash. Are you ready?” The woman nodded her head. In this exercise the dog is supposed to stay beside your left leg, matching your speed as you move quickly or slowly, turning when you do, and automatically sitting when you stop—all without additional commands. The woman was dressed stylishly in a skirt and knee-high boots, but the boots’ high heels sank into the arena’s sandy floor. Obviously uncomfortable walking under these conditions, she did not move very quickly or smoothly. The bouncy, energetic corgi appeared to be controlling its urges to run or
play and all was going well.

  In the next exercise, the figure 8, the team heeled around two ring stewards who stood in as posts about 6 feet apart while the team walked a figure 8 pattern around them. Afterward, the corgi was told to stand, and the handler moved a leash length away while the judge went over to touch the dog.

  Then the heeling exercise was repeated, this time with the dog off leash. The woman responded to the judge’s command “Forward,” and the corgi immediately realized that there was no controlling leash attached to him anymore and decided to remedy the slow pace that his mistress was walking. Bred to drive cattle, corgis instinctively move them along by barking and nipping at their heels, so he dropped back a few steps, issued a couple of yiplike barks, and nipped at the woman’s boots and legs. When she did not speed up adequately, he nipped again and barked more vigorously. When the woman stopped at the judge’s command, instead of sitting, the dog circled her and continued to bark and nip. Some of the audience watching began to laugh, while several longtime competitors simply shook their heads and grimaced in sympathy.

  The judge walked over to the woman, said something quietly, and then cut that exercise short. She had definitely failed to qualify. The woman reached down and brought the dog back to her side with a sharp command. Then they started the next exercise, the recall. The corgi was told to sit and stay, and the woman moved to the other side of the ring. On the command “Come!” the dog dashed toward her, barking all the way, and then sat perfectly in front of her. She then gave the command to send the dog around behind her and back into the heel position. The dog stood up, went around her, and gave a sharp bark and a nip when he got behind her, eventually returning to her left side and sitting down. The dog really seemed quite proud of its performance; the woman, however, was red-faced.

  I looked down at Flint and quietly said, “At least you won’t do worse than that.”

  “Do you want to bet money on that?” came his silly voice as he spun in another clockwise loop while trying to keep his eyes on the corgi leaving the ring.

  The next competitors were a woman with a Shetland sheepdog and another with a golden retriever, both of whom produced picture-perfect performances.

  When it was our turn, I told Flint to sit and gave him a treat. “There are more treats if you do well,” I promised him. Treats are not allowed in the actual obedience ring, so he has just eaten the last one in my pocket.

  We walked up to the gate and the steward showed us to the starting line. The judge, a middle-aged man in a business suit, came over to us, glanced at Flint and back to me, and asked, “Are you ready?”

  “I’m ready,” I answered, and looked down at Flint. “I hope that my dog is.”

  The judge smiled and said, “The first exercise is the heel on lead. Forward.”

  I said, “Flint, heel,” and stepped out confidently. I didn’t look down at Flint, but by the looseness of the leash and the flash of gray I glimpsed from the corner of my eye I knew that he was with me. Right turn, left turn, halt! Forward, about turn, fast, slow—all the while the leash was loose and Flint was heeling perfectly. I thought to myself, “This may actually work out.”

  It was now time for the figure 8 exercise. One of the two ring stewards acting as “posts” was a middle-aged woman in slacks and a pink sweatshirt with the image of a poodle on it. The other was a pretty young woman in her early twenties wearing an unusual wraparound skirt made of denim that was nearly floor length and had fringes running down its length.

  The sight of the fringes gave me a flash of concern. Flint had already proved his attraction to fringes when he grabbed the woman’s purse that day in the snow … Many people report that their terriers try to bite at their shoelaces if they are tied loosely and move when they walk. President Theodore Roosevelt had a terrier named Jock who was incited by the swishing of the tails of the French ambassador’s formal dinner jacket when he visited the White House. Jock leapt up to bite at one of them but missed and instead tore out the seat of the ambassador’s pants, nearly causing an international incident. I was hopeful that, since we were indoors, no wind would stir the fringes, and the woman was supposed to stand still. Flint was doing fine in his heeling so perhaps all would be well.

  At the judge’s command “Forward,” I told Flint to heel and stepped out. The woman in the fringed wraparound skirt chose that moment to adjust herself, and while we were circling her I felt some tension on the leash and at the same moment heard some laughter from the sidelines. When I looked down and back, Flint had seized the fringed edge of the skirt and as he walked around the woman, he was unwrapping her. She was already displaying much more bare leg than she’d intended when she recognized what was happening and dropped her hands to her sides to stop her clothing from unraveling and so recover her dignity.

  “Flint, heel!” I said sharply, knowing that this extra command and Flint’s molestation of the ring steward had probably caused us to fail the exercise. He looked startled, dropped the skirt’s edge, and returned to my side. As we began to circle the other steward, Flint did a clockwise twirl at the end of the leash, trying to keep watch on the fringes behind him. After a brief halt, we circled the girl in the denim skirt again, but this time she was prepared and her hands were straight down beside her. I was also prepared and made a very wide circle around with Flint, out of reach of the fringes. Unhappy about this, he did two more clockwise twirls in his eagerness to grab at them again.

  In the next exercise, the stand for examination, I told Flint to stand, stepped a leash length away, and the judge came over to touch the dog, for which Flint was supposed to remain stationary. But being a very sociable dog, and a little bit excited after the figure 8, Flint was looking for someone to play with. He broke from the stand and danced over to lick the judge’s hand, which was a clear failure.

  For the next exercise, the heel off lead, on the judge’s command I told Flint to heel and began to move. After a few turns and stops, we did an about turn and started to move toward the entrance of the ring. There the ring steward in the wraparound skirt was having an animated discussion with someone, waving her hands and moving a few steps so that the fringes on her skirt fluttered. I saw a furry gray form streak past my left side toward her.

  I yelled, “Flint, heel!” The ring steward gave a little squeal of distress at the sight of Flint, dropped her hands down to protect her clothing, and at the same time tried to hide behind the woman she had been talking to. Flint spun to look at me, then looked longingly back at those fringes.

  “Flint, heel!” I shouted with what I hoped sounded like authority, and my little gray dog made another clockwise circle and returned to my side.

  In the final exercise, the recall, I called Flint from his sitting position across the ring, and he dashed toward me at high speed, coming to a perfect sit in front of me, and then returning to the heeling position on my command—a picture-perfect ending to a nonqualifying performance.

  As I walked out of the ring with Flint, the ring steward with the fringes stood well to the side, hands on her skirt. A young collie was the last competitor, and he and Flint gave each other a playful sniff as we passed.

  I walked over to my friends, and Barbara Merkley smiled and said, “That was interesting!” Joan had bent her head and was still covering her face with her hands.

  The collie in the ring was very young, full of energy, and not under good control. As he left the ring, the steward with the pink poodle top called all of the competitors back for the group exercises.

  We lined up with Flint and me near the end, followed by only the collie. We marched to the far end of the ring, where we sat our dogs and took off their leashes for the two group exercises. The first, the long sit, is really not that long—only 1 minute in duration—but it is done with the handlers all the way across the ring. The second, the long down, is for 3 minutes, and does feel very long when you are standing 40 feet from your dog, watching him fidget.

  The dogs were in line and sitting when the
judge said, “Leave your dogs.” I told Flint to “Stay!” and strode across the ring. When I reached the far side and turned, Flint and the collie were standing and facing each other. The collie gave a little bow, lowered his front in an invitation to play, and then barked. Flint did the same, and before the judge or the ring stewards could do anything, the two dogs happily circled each other and then charged down the line gyrating and whirling around the other dogs and causing all of them—except the golden retriever—to break from their sitting positions. The judge hastily yelled, “Back to your dogs,” and the handlers rushed to retrieve their animals.

  Once order was restored and the dogs were again sitting in a line, the judge took me and the collie’s owner and our dogs over to the other side of the ring and told us to stay there while the long sit and the long down exercises were conducted without us. We remained in the corner, like dunces or misbehaved children. Joan was huddled down in her chair, looking as if she were searching for a place to hide.

  We left the ring with the other, happier, and more controlled competitors. Near the entrance, Barbara Baker was standing with the small bag of treats I had left with her. As I bent over to give Flint one, she said with a smile, “He needs a little work, especially in the sit-stay, but you can’t fault him for a lack of enthusiasm!”

  On the car ride home, Joan was still upset.

  “I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life. I was looking for a hole to crawl into!” she said, her voice quavering.

  “Why should you be embarrassed?” I asked. “You weren’t out in the ring, and nobody except the people from the club know who you are.”