Same thing as you had with Sticky but she cannot realize that she doesn't have nor wants to have what it takes to make changes in her life to fix it. She thinks the kids can train the dog. The kids or neighbor kids are going to get bit. She ain't no Vicky. You know when dogs come here they behave...... they just do.... even the crate eaters. It is not a trick or a quick fix it is a overall attitude. She fails....... no way it will work. She doesn't have what it takes. You can tell by people's dogs and kids what the parents are. The nippy angel dog is not ours but another rescue...... I don't know what is going to happen with this ordeal....... she was supposed to pick up on Friday. I have no idea what the rescue has decided to do with the dog. I said to repossess him.
I send Malta my story about the sea turtle saga, and she writes back:
Ya know the whole turtle thing just represents life itself to me. Birth, struggle, death....... you didn't see the fun parts though..... the swimming around. People often forget the swimming part because it isn't as tangible as birth, struggle, and death........ swimming is the most important part. IMHO.
That is true. The swimming around is the most important part, and I hadn't seen that. I had seen the birth (or thought I had….), and the death, but missed the main event..... the swimming. There had been lots of that. It was a large turtle, had lived a long life, and probably enjoyed a good bit of swimming. Maybe the turtle symbol is one of hope after all, and maybe my focus is on the wrong thing.
On the morning of our departure day, I awake very early so I will have time for a final bike ride on the beach. Melancholy always nips my heels when our beach week comes to a close. The cool morning breeze wafts through the sun-stained air like silk across my warm skin. The heron is there again, this time standing just feet from an ocean fisherman, undoubtedly waiting for handouts. They look like friends, the waves crashing around their double pair of thin legs.
Reaching the toe of the island, the same place the turtle shell had washed ashore, I see wide tracks, like something being dragged, from the low tide line all the way up to the sand dunes. I stop and look more closely. All along the edge of the flattened path are sharp, deep slashes diagonally pressed into the sand. With sudden delight, I picture the mama sea turtle, dragging her cumbrous body the hundreds of feet from the ocean edge to her nesting place in the secluded sea grass and dune. Orange tape marks the turtle nests, warning people to stay away. I have not seen a live sea turtle, but it is unmistakably her tracks. Judging from how close her tracks come to where the tide now settles at its lowest point of the morning, I know I have not missed her by more than a couple of hours. Joy nudges away the despondency I have been fighting. I would've preferred to have seen her in the flesh, but her tracks printed on the sand creak and groan with her effort and her presence. Sometimes all I see of God are His tracks as well, and it must suffice.
“I hear you!” I cry to the wind and the sky.
I bike with the breeze at my back, and see a pink bellied baby dolphin leap into the air, the sun cascading in rivulets from his sleek form. I don't stop to hunt for any more shells or shark teeth. Instead, I take in the larger view, the sun just above the horizon, already blindingly bright against the silver sea and white sand.
Dear Lord,
Thank you for reminding me that faith may be defined as the presence of things not seen, but the evidence of your presence is as unmistakable as the evidence of the sea turtle by her tracks. Help me not to lose hope because things are not always what they seem to be.
Help me to have a spirit of forgiveness even to the undeserving. I guess the key to that is humility. If I can humbly admit that your forgiveness is not through anything I have done, but all through what Jesus has done, it is easier to extend that forgiveness to others.
It is easy to condemn others, but it really is harder to do so when I know I am just as guilty. If I am all puffed up, which happens as you sadly know far too often, I can’t see my feet and that I am walking straight into self-righteousness. I can’t say I love the lesson, but you showed me a few thousand times that every time I boast about my success with Honeybun, she proves me a liar.
I never really thought of that before- the connection between forgiveness and humility. I hope I can hold onto this lesson Lord. It is maybe the one I need the most.
Amen.
CHAPTER 15 Faith
We return just in time for Honeybun's birthday. We do not really know when she was born, but since Lucky was born June 2, and Asherel's birthday is June 3, she decides to call June 1 Honeybun's birthday. It has also been almost exactly a year since we found her.
Asherel dresses her up in her pink birthday bandana and we mix sirloin tip dog food in with her dry kibble. Lucky wears a green bandana, and gets the birthday dinner as well. Neither dog seems very impressed by the birthday outfit, but enjoys the dinner.
Asherel takes her out back to her training agility course, and works through her front and rear crosses, and weave poles. Honey is excited, and watches her trainer with increasing understanding. Simple hand movements, or change in Asherel's posture are beginning to cue her now. If Asherel tells her to “go out”, and then straightens up, Honeybun continues to move outward to the next jump. If Asherel crouches down after sending her out, Honey wraps back in towards Asherel. It astounds me to watch the communication growing between the two, and how easily Honeybun seems to read the signals.
"You need to go online and find a USDAA trial near us in August," I suggest.
"Will she be ready by August?" Asherel asks, uncharacteristically uncertain.
"I think so! Certainly for Novice Jumper."
"Will I be ready by August?"
"Ask Laura," I advise.
I have come down with a wretched cold, and am grateful it waited to assault me till after Globals and vacation. We plan to visit Sadie Tuesday, but I am still too sick to go when Tuesday arrives. Meanwhile, Malta's generosity has backfired on her, and she is trembling with hurt and anger.
The woman she called “the Monkey lady” (a description of her children doing gymnastics on her couch like a monkey) has gone to court and claims Malta has refused to return her dog. The woman is obviously lying. She had brought the dog to Malta crying for help when the Humane Society recommended that Malta was the only person that could help her if anyone could. The family dog, recently adopted from that humane society, had suddenly become aggressive with the children, tried to kill the cat, and was uncontrollable. The child had bruises all over her arms from the dog. So the lady left the dog with Malta, with the understanding that Malta would further assess the situation to try to help her, and the lady was to return on Friday.
"The dog was perfect with us, Vicky," laments Malta, “The cat passed right under its nose, and no problems. The problem is not the dog, it is a fine dog, but it is an accident waiting to happen. Those kids are going to be bitten because the mother has no idea how to put limits on them, or on the dog."
Apparently, Malta’s blunt appraisal of the "monkey lady's" lack of authority over her dog and children offended her. In spiteful deceit, she went to the magistrate judge and claimed Malta would not give her back her dog, and she feared for her life. Malta had no idea any of this was happening, and took the day off from work Friday so she could wait for the lady to show up to reclaim the dog. Malta was at the vet when she received a call from one of her volunteers that a cop was at the door, demanding that Malta relinquish someone's dog.
Malta scurried home, utterly dumbfounded. The policeman told Malta he had an order from the magistrate judge that she turn over the dog.
"What is this all about?" cried Malta, “I am happy to return the dog. She was coming today to get it. Take the dog! I don't want the dog!"
The officer began asking questions- do they have a business license, how many dogs do they house, how many kennels....?
Malta, who has a healthy fear of what a government gone power- crazed can do suspects the crazy lady told them horrible things about LCR.
"Come in an
d see for yourself," she demanded.
The officer told her no, he would wait outside.
"Look, if I am being accused of something, don't you think you should come in and see what kind of awful conditions my animals are housed in?"
The policeman entered the house. Twenty-five well behaved dogs, including the sweet pit bull, Melissa greeted him. Malta’s floors were as usual, spotless. Not a bit of clutter or anything out of place. Her counters were clear and scrubbed. The sun sparkled through her neat windows. It was like it always is.
"Do you take pit bulls?" asked the officer, who apparently has one he wants to save.
So the officer, seemingly won over, took the crazy lady's dog, and Malta, dear tough Malta, is as close to despair and tears as I have ever known her to be.
Later she talks to me for an hour, rehashing this attack on her refuge with deep hurt.
"She has sullied our name, all lies, and all because she didn't want to hear the truth. I spent forty minutes beating around the bush trying to find a nice way to tell her she had no control of her kids. I never told her I would keep the dog from her. I don't need any more dogs! All I was trying to do was help her! You know how I have treated Asherel, or the field trip kids. I have never purposely hurt another human being. How could she do this? And what can I do now? A cop- she sends a cop to get the dog! And now a judge has in writing all her lies and accusations. This hurts the animals. And there is nothing I can do- she can lie all she wants, and defame LCR, and we have no recourse."
Later she writes to tell me she has contacted a lawyer friend who says defamation will be very hard to prove, and very expensive. He does not advise she attempt it. Instead he suggests she have the people and organizations who know her write letters on her behalf. I tell her I will write one the next day; just give me details on where to send it.
She writes back she will send details tomorrow, "For now I can't think about it anymore, I am to the boohoo point."
Never never have I known Malta to be anything but strong, and assured.
Malta writes on, "She is one very evil person. And I don't say that often about people...... but I have never met a person to go through such lengths over their ego before. You know I forgive her though. I forgive simply because being angry and hateful does not serve the purpose of life.
Not sure how long I have left on the planet so I gotta do what I can do to make it a little bit better of a place in my own way. Like chuckin' a turtle into the sea."
I read her email and glance at Honeybun who is in her wicker basket, her pink bandanna neatly tied around her birthday neck, and she is snoring. There lays the transformed wild dingo, rescued by the forthright talents of Malta, who feels herself drowning in this sea of troubles rising about her. It makes me feel to the "boohoo point" too.
Frequent spring storms delay the Handling Class from completion until mid summer. Honeybun always seems to remember that it is Wednesday night, and she trots over to me sitting on the couch, nails clicking on the wood floors, face hopefully furrowed, tail wagging.
She stands before me, her chest gently heaving with her silent whine. If I continue to ignore her, she scampers over to the door and sits in front of it, immobile. Not a hair twitches as she sits, waiting for us to take her to class. I don’t know if it is the anticipation of class, or of the delicious meatballs, but she clearly wants to go.
Laura’s agility courses become increasingly complex. Asherel finally begins acquiescing to my pleas to walk the course with the other handlers, and she even begins to practice how she will turn to allow a front or rear cross. I may even observe her counting her strides, which the really excellent handlers do. She is always the first off the course, never walking it more than once. Most of the others walk it at least two or three times.
“Done so soon?” I ask, trying hard not to glare menacingly.
She nods at me briefly, eyes ahead, clearly not wanting to discuss tactics with me.
“You know what you need to do?”
“Yes,” she clips.
And invariably, when it is Honeybun’s turn, she knows what to do, at least sort of. As she clears one course with no errors, Bit, another class member, claps her hands and calls out, “Honeybun did everything right!”
It is time to look for a trial within driving distance. I surf online and find a USDAA event in Chapel Hill, just three hours away. It will entail a hotel, but I am willing to incur some cost if the trial seems like a good one for Honeybun to start with. I email the trial manager, and admit what neophytes we are, but anxious to enter our first trial.
The manager writes back immediately, filled with advice and encouragement. She mails me the application, a thirteen page form filled with information, much of it indecipherable to me who am not versed in the shockingly wide variety of events and titles.
I write back begging her to just tell us which classes we should attempt. She gives me a variety of choices that she feels our novice dog could handle. Asherel reads the entire document a couple of times and then we sit down to fill it out.
“Wait till the last minute to send it in,” she advises, “I want to see if Honey will be ready.” This from the ever optimistic Asherel is a surprise. I am ready. Somehow I know that our journey is nearing a conclusion, and we need to seize the moment.
“Starter” jumper classes are relatively easy. The only obstacles the dog needs to navigate are jumps and tunnels. Honeybun is fairly competent on those, but I agree with Asherel that we can wait and be sure she is fully ready before committing. We still have a month. One of my biggest concerns is the official measurement of the dog to determine jump heights. The jump height is figured by the height of the dog at the shoulders. We have measured Honeybun and she is tall enough for 16 inch jumps. We have been warned that our measure will not be accepted but that an official measurement will be taken at the first three trials she attends. The way this is done, we are told, is a metal apparatus is placed around the dog and a bar lowered over the shoulder to get a very accurate height. I do not know how Honeybun might react to this unfamiliar apparatus on her by a total stranger. I do know that “vicious” dogs will be evicted from the trial, and so hope she will take this new task sweetly. It would be embarrassing to be disqualified even before entering the field.
There are countless class choices a new dog can enter. Classes called Snookers, and Gamblers are apparently within her capabilities. I tell Asherel her duty is to go online and find out what these entail, mostly because when I read them through, my brain is spinning and has not worked this hard since completing calculus. Oh wait, I never did complete Calculus, but it I had, that is how hard my brain is spinning.
We download the USDAA rules book. In Gamblers classes, the dog accumulates points by running a course with varying obstacles in an allotted time. The handler can choose the obstacles, but the judge can impose restrictions on what order obstacles are performed or can give specific extra point challenges or “jokers”, also called gambles. This sounds fun but confusing.
“Jumpers” class is a little less imposing. It is a course of jumps and tunnels, and sometimes weave poles. In Starters’ Jumper class, which is what Asherel would compete in, there will be no weaves, which is good, as Honeybun is still very inconsistent in her weaving skill. The winner is determined by fewest penalties, and in case of a tie, time elapsed to complete the course.
Snooker is a class named after a British billiards game, and the goal is to gain as many points as possible by negotiating the obstacles in “snooker” sequence, defined by color. The colors cue the handler to the difficulty of the obstacle with red being relatively easy and black being the most difficult. The rules beyond this simplistic description can only be deciphered by someone with a post graduate education. After each “red” is a “color” obstacle and the dog is only allowed to attempt the color after clearing the red. Once all reds are performed successfully, the dog moves on to the closing sequence, which includes all the higher point value colors up to black. How
points are determined is too confusing for me to even attempt to paraphrase, but as the USDAA rules book states:
“The maximum score possible in the opening sequence is determined by the number of "Reds" defined in the course plan by the judge. If three "Reds" are defined, then the maximum number of points is 24; if four "Reds are defined, then the maximum is 32 points; and so forth. The maximum can be achieved by performing each "Red" successfully (1 point apiece) and then following each "Red" with the "Black" obstacle, which is worth 7 points each time it is performed successfully. So the maximum points possible in the opening sequence is 8 points times the number of "Reds". The maximum point value of the closing sequence is always 27 points, which is the sum of the Yellow, Green, Brown, Blue, Pink and Black obstacles (2+3+4+5+6+7=27). Therefore, the maximum possible score in snooker is defined by the sum of possible points in the opening and closing sequences. For a course with three "Reds", the highest score possible is 51 points; with four "Reds" it is 59 points; with five "Reds" it is 67 points. Typically, a course will only have three or four "Reds". The number is determined by the judge's course plan. A qualifying score for USDAA title is a minimum of 37 points. Qualifying placements must also be earned for title certification purposes.” You see what I mean. Calculus is probably a breeze compared to Snooker.
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