I'm Listening With a Broken Ear

by Vicky Kaseorg

  Unexpectedly, Nina from the Rally class that seemed years ago forwards me an email:

  Effective April 10, 2010 mixed breeds will be able to compete in AKC

  obedience, agility, and rally. Unfortunately they must compete in separate

  classes, and only at trials not held in conjunction with conformation shows,

  but at least it's a step in the right direction.

  This is very good news. There are many AKC trials, but quite a few less USDAA trials nearby. We seem to be on a path to actually reaching our goal, step by step. I push on Honeybun’s side. No ribs yet. Well, we still have a week……

  “Arrrrrroooofooooood!” Honeybun howls.

  Concurrently, our horse training is proceeding well. Malta and Will are there when we visit Sadie the next time. They are building catch pen fencing, which will be nice for us in the future as we can separate the horses more easily. Malta is confident we will tame Sadie, but I am not sure her confidence is justified. And I am not sure that we are wise and discerning in working with wild Sadie, and belligerent Bob. Some nights I go to sleep and see mangled, trampled bodies when my eyes close and wonder if perhaps we should seek tamer volunteer opportunities, like defanging rattlesnakes. But Asherel is having great fun.

  Malta has not watched us work with Sadie for weeks. I am a little nervous, knowing I am bumbling along in ignorance. I bumble better without an audience. Malta’s eyes are on me as Sadie eagerly tosses her head and pulls at my belly pack with her teeth. She knows we have treats in there. She lets us fiddle with her face, but still refuses to let us touch her neck or comb her tangled mane. Her nipping at our clothes, tugging at us with increasing excitement is not malicious, but she could miscalculate and nip skin. I don’t want to reprimand her for fear of destroying all the good karma we have established with her.

  As she nibbles at me, I pull the halter, dangling from my hand over her nose. She lets it sit there for a few seconds, then tosses her head and it slides off.

  “That’s right!” calls Malta, obviously unable to watch us stumbling neophytes any longer without comment. She strides over.

  “Make her earn her treats now,” commands Malta. She snatches the halter from me, and puts a treat under it, holding it under Sadie’s nose. Sadie shakes her head and nibbles at Malta’s arm, her teeth showing though not closing. Malta smacks her nose and Sadie skitters away.

  “Don’t let her show her teeth at you,” Malta warns, “She will be back. She knows you are the food dispenser, but now you are the food dispenser with rules.”

  Sadie returns and licks her lips.

  “Now you try it,” orders Malta.

  I give the treat to Asherel, then taking the halter, I instruct her to hold the treat under the dangling halter so that Sadie will be forced to slip her nose in if she wants the treat.

  “Make her work for it!” calls Malta.

  Sadie perks her ears, and then nibbles at my arm again. I flick my hand at her, and shout “No!” Sadie skitters away.

  “That’s ok!” insists Malta, “She’ll be back!”

  Sadie returns, circling slowly back to me. This time she sticks her nose in the halter, without nipping at us, and gobbles her treat.

  “Good!” encourages Malta, and then like the gifted teacher that she is, she leaves to continue working on the fence. I know we are probably still being watched, but she is giving us space to learn in our own stumbling way. Asherel holds the treat while I fumble with the halter, but eventually we begin to coordinate our efforts well and we are consistently getting the halter halfway up Sadie’s long nose. Once she even allows the halter three fourths of the way on, calmly finishes her treat, and then licks her lips.

  “GREAT!” calls Malta, “End there; end on a good note.”

  We saunter over, smiling with success.

  “Did you see her licking her lip?” our teacher quizzes, “That means she has just learned something new. From now on, no more showing her teeth and she has to earn the treats. Next time I will get you the halter that clips on, so if you can get it over her ears, just leave it on. She will probably go a little crazy and run some, but just leave it on. Don’t pull on it or anything yet, just let her get used to it.”

  I am happy to hear she feels we will get the halter on, but am envisioning the mad gallop that will ensue with us likely in the path. While talking a good talk, I am essentially a coward and the thought of a deranged mustang whisking about like an egg beater does not fill my heart with joy. I am more willing now to step into completely uncharted waters with our success with Honeybun, but this is a thousand pounds heavier tub of water.

  On our way out, we stop to pet the new baby foal in a nearby pen. Malta is not happy about the foal. Before they had one of their rescue stallions neutered, he managed to get to one of the mares. The result was this sweet foal. As Malta told the wide-eyed field trip class as they gazed at the new baby, “We do not rejoice in baby horses here. There are already too many horses being discarded and starved. The last thing the world needs is another horse.”

  Transfixed by the beautiful little foal, with her spindly legs and soft fuzzy mane and tail, I understand Malta’s point- she is the one that has to struggle with the fallout of too many unwanted animals in the world. But I cannot say I don’t rejoice in this little baby now that she is here. Honestly, there are too many people here too, but which one would you send back? The task switches at that point to finding someone who wants her. Malta would agree- she will cut off testicles faster than you can say “zero population growth”, but once that animal is here, she will do everything in her power to make its stay a pleasant one.

  Handling Class starts as the spring begins to cascade with oak leaves finally unfurling, the azalea bushes in full bloom, and little birds huddled in tiny nests in crooks of the tree out front. Honeybun looks marginally thinner, and she is distinctly not happy that we have reduced her intake.

  We already know many of the people in the class, though the instructor does not know us except for that first brief introductory meeting. The classes will last eight weeks, and the largest hurdle for me will be staying awake. I am a notorious early to bed, early to rise kind of gal, and Honeybun too has settled into my circadian rhythm of life. At 9:00, she tiptoes daintily, nails clicking on the wood floor, over to Asherel's bed, where she leaps like a cat onto her side of the bed, snuggles her head on the pillow, and Asherel covers her with sheet and blanket. Within seconds, this pampered pet closes her eyes and begins to snore.

  Our new handling class starts at 8:15 and ends at 9:45. I begin hallucinating at 9:06. This class is well after all our bedtimes. And to make it even more tortuous, we only feed Honeybun a teeny morsel of dinner so she will be more anxious to work the agility course for food. She sits at her bowl, and says, “You are not telling me this is all there is, are you?” She beseeches, begging us with her dark mournful eyes to notice how she is wasting away into nothingness.

  We eagerly pile into the van early, as the sun is setting, to head out to our first class. Steak is the "cookie" tonight, as I want Honeybun's full attention on Asherel.

  The class gathers, and Laura, our leader marches in. Laura is a highly competent, fully knowledgeable, no nonsense teacher. She reminds me of Malta in that respect. And she knows dogs! Within seconds of meeting a rather lumbering Springer Spaniel, she tells the owner the dog is hesitant over the jumps because first of all, he doesn’t want to be touched. The owner keeps trying to hug and touch him, and the dog would prefer to be left alone. The owner admits this is true. I am not sure I have ever considered that a dog might not want to be touched. Lucky can’t be touched enough, but Honeybun does not seek out or love being pet for very long. I know people who don’t like to be touched, namely me. I don’t mind hugs from beloved family members, but in general I have a personal body space hedge of about 50 feet. If people get closer than that, I get nervous. I could relate to the poor dog who had inadequate English skills to tell the owner to get her hands off him.
/>
  Next, Laura wants to know if the dog has been checked that he is physically able to handle the jumps. I am perplexed. What makes her ask that? The dog is slow, but seems to jump just fine to me.

  "He doesn't seem comfortable over the jumps," Laura explains.

  "Well," the owner admits, "He did come up lame after our last trial." She pauses and adds, "But the vet cleared him for activity now."

  Laura rolls her eyes, and takes a deep breath, "Look, our vets are not sports performance vets. Honestly, they just don't know the way a sports performance chiropractor would about agility dogs."

  I laugh out loud thinking Laura has just made a joke. No one else is laughing, and they look at me like I am a Neanderthal. I blink. They appear to be serious. I see more dollar signs dancing across the sky. Dog chiropractors?

  Laura continues, "Everyone should have their agility dog checked by a chiropractor. I have an eight year old, ten year old, and recently retired twelve yr. old dog that did agility for many years without troubles. If you want to have a long life of agility, you should have the dog followed by a trained chiropractor."

  I glance around. Everyone is nodding. I don’t know what these people do for a living but we can’t afford a human chiropractor, let alone a dog chiropractor. What will they suggest next? A dog masseuse? Indeed that is what they start discussing next and I am seriously worried now.

  "Furthermore, you should be constantly assessing your dog's level of fitness, and sometimes that means adjusting towards a leaner weight...."

  Here she looks pointedly at Honeybun. Honeybun is not offended as her eyes are locked solidly on Asherel's pouch of steak. Thankfully, Laura does not belabor the point and gives the class their beginning instructions.

  "OK, I want to see where all of you are. I have set up a little pinwheel here..."

  Pinwheel? I hope Asherel knows what that means, because I do not. First dog chiropractors, now pinwheels.

  "Here is jump 1, 2, 3, 4, enter this end of tunnel, pinwheel to 5, 6, 7, 8, enter this tunnel, front cross and 9, 10, 11, and finish on 12."

  Asherel glances at me. I detect a touch of terror.

  "Did you get that?" I whisper.

  She shakes her head no.

  "Walk the course," dictates Laura.

  Asherel rather reservedly marches out onto the pinwheel course. She shyly moves to each jump and then returns to me. The others, obviously veterans, walk confidently, and then run the way they will run their dog, complete with hand motions. I have learned by now that Asherel will warm to the task, and to push her to get over her tentativeness now will backfire.

  "Do you know what to do?" I ask. It may seem a little thing to those Type B personalities out there to be able to step back and not shove your child into the fray, and not force her to do what she is hesitant to do. It is a major thing to us Type A obsessive perfectionists. If nothing else, Honeybun is teaching me that you can’t force growth- sometimes the process must unfold slowly. If by some miracle, I can summon the patience to wait, it happens without my direct intervention. I know this is a major character flaw that has been sorely tested in the year of Honeybun. I cling to the verse , “Be still, and know that I am God.” Be still. I sit on my hands and am still.

  This time she gives a quick nod. She seems to get this pinwheel concept.

  "We'll go in height order. 8" dogs first."

  This means jump height. Honeybun is a 16" dog. She is the third dog in line. I watch with trepidation as Asherel prepares Honeybun. She has her sit, and then moves three jumps away. I am screaming inside, but practicing that “be still” verse, and sitting on my tongue. Three jumps away! How will Honeybun know where to go? What is Asherel thinking? How does she expect Honeybun to sit that long? And worse still, Honeybun is looking around, her attention not on Asherel at all. My tongue is still, but my mental speech is diuretic.

  "OK, Honey!" Asherel shouts, "Jump!"

  Honeybun explodes, and to my utter shock, correctly clears the first line of three jumps. Then she circles back to clear number four.

  "Out!" calls Asherel. (She doesn’t know “out” I am screaming mentally.)Amazingly, the little dog circles, following Asherel's signal and clears the jump.

  "Tunnel!" commands Asherel.

  Honeybun pauses at the entrance, glances at Asherel who repeats the command, and then skitters into the tunnel.

  "Over!"

  Honeybun sails over the next line of jumps, now reverse order from the first line.

  "Tunnel!"

  This time she doesn’t hesitate but races through the tunnel.

  Asherel is ready for her at the other end, "Jump!"

  Honeybun races over the last three jumps, and the class cheers.

  "Very good!" exclaims Laura.

  Asherel and Honeybun trot back to me, both grinning. Maybe there is something to this “be still” strategy after all. I am wondering where all this quiet confidence is springing from. Honeybun glances at me and reminds me that not every eleven year old would dare take a wild dog, and trot her over park bleachers in anticipation of a distant goal no one has the audacity to envision. I look deep into the wise eyes of this ancient breed. What a curious vehicle God has sent redemption in.

  "I didn't know she could do that," I say, "Great job."

  Next, Laura has a simple exercise for us that she claims will be a good thing to practice every day. With the jumps lowered to just off the ground, the handler will send the dog to the jump without moving towards it. The dog is to learn to watch the hand and body language alone of the trainer.

  "Otherwise," explains Laura, "All you are doing is teaching the dog to heel over jumps. She needs to learn to follow your hand and your voice, as you send her out over jumps."

  I am no longer quite as surprised when Honeybun does it perfectly.

  "She did very well," says Laura. Then, she demonstrates better handling cues and sends Asherel over the course again. Even I see the difference. Somehow those changes more clearly communicate to Honeybun exactly what she needs to know.

  "If a dog messes up," says Laura, "It is because you have not given her the right information."

  The Springer Spaniel is next.

  His owner commands him to go out, and he lumbers a little ways, and then circles back to her, sniffing and disinterested.

  "Pay him!" calls Laura. (This is handler lingo for give the dog food.)

  The owner looks horrified.

  "But he didn't do it," she counters.

  "Pay him whether he does it or not," says Laura.

  The owner could not look more disgusted.

  "Even if he does it wrong?" she asks incredulously.

  "Right."

  Even I am with the owner on this one. Why pay the dog for doing it wrong? I am not getting this strategy at all. When Asherel doesn’t do her school work, I raise the standard. It occurs to me as I watch the glum, apathetic dog that Asherel responds similarly at times.

  The owner shrugs and tells her dog to go out. The dog repeats the same apathetic walk to the jump, and then returns.

  "Pay him!"

  While the owner and I squint at Laura in ongoing skepticism, the owner gives her dog a morsel. He wags his tail.

  "Again!"

  "Go jump!" says the owner.

  The dog, wagging his tail hops over the jump and returns.

  "Good boy!" calls Laura, "Pay him big! Then do it again."

  "Go jump!"

  This time the dog races over the jump and comes bounding back. I pick my jaw up off the grass and realize I have just seen an epiphany. It doesn’t take much gray matter to connect my method of schooling an apathetic child with the apathetic dog. I again glance at Honeybun who is watching me closely to be sure I have learned the proper application.

  "Good job, now you have a happy and interested dog. See class," instructs Laura, "I want to be sure you get this. If your dog shows up for work, you pay him."

  She turns to the Spaniel's owner, "You were horrified when I told you to pa
y him right or wrong, weren't you?"

  "Well yes," she admits, "He just doesn't show much interest, and I don't want to reward that."