“Vaughn and Mia are great,” she replied, emphasizing their names, as if they were old friends. “It’s intense, though. Like, the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But I’m really happy with my audition.” She shrugged like she couldn’t help her awesomeness.
“Oh, that’s great,” Cora said, feeling the butterflies migrate from her belly to her throat.
“Good luck,” Brooke said flatly. “Oh, and you’re going to love Honey. She’s a total ringer, I’ve worked with her before.”
Cora felt like she’d been punched in the gut. Just how connected was Brooke? And why were they continuing to audition people if Brooke already had it wrapped up?
“Thanks. Oh—what kind of dog is Honey?”
“Doberman. Smart as hell.” As she left the room, Brooke adjusted a light switch on the wall to drive home the fact that she belonged there and Cora was the interloper.
Cora felt her fingers go numb. She looked down at the scar on the top of her hand and rubbed it, as if trying to make it disappear. The bite had occurred in the infancy of her training career, when she reached for a bone her Doberman client was guarding. The dog reacted by nailing her on the hand and forearm in rapid succession. The embarrassment over her misstep—because it was her stupid mistake—was almost as painful as the bite itself. She had trained Dobes over the years and had learned to conquer her nerves and enjoy them, but she was a little superstitious about the breed, and having to audition with one seemed like fate trying to tell her something.
“Cora, all set?” Mia asked as she came in the room.
“Yup, yes indeedy,” she replied brightly. Her nerves were turning her into a flight attendant.
She stood on shaky legs and followed Mia into the audition room, essentially a larger version of the room she had just been in but with a pile of agility equipment stacked in the corner. A dark-haired man approached Cora with his hand out.
“I’m Vaughn, so nice to meet you, Cora! Loved your photo with all of those sleeping dogs!” He had the air of the most raucous guy on the rugby team. His hair was slightly long with a frat boy wave in it, and he swept his palm across his forehead frequently to move it out of his eyes.
“Thank you! My client took it, she’s basically an artist mixed with a magician.” Cora felt instantly at ease in the room despite the circumstances. Brooke was right, Mia and Vaughn were great.
“You should see some of the submission photos we got. Sheesh! One woman was bending over petting her dog, and it was basically a clear shot down the front of her blouse to her push-up bra.”
“So what am I doing here then?” Cora asked with a gleam in her eye. “Clearly you found your trainer!”
Vaughn and Mia guffawed, and Cora was pleased that her stupid joke had landed. Maybe Brooke didn’t have this in the bag!
“So let’s get your mic on and get started. Our intern Ryan usually takes care of it, but he took Honey out for a quick potty break.”
Vaughn told Cora how to feed the mic wire down her blouse, and looked away when she had to fish it out of her bra. He attached and reattached the mic on the inside edge of her shirt a few times, stepping back and tilting his head to see if it was visible.
“Fantastic, good to go. Almost as good as when Ryan does it.”
Mia stared at Cora. She spoke to Vaughn quietly. “After all of that work, do you think her shirt is going to read funny?”
“The stripes! How did I miss that? We were so busy talking about cleavage that it slipped my mind.”
“It’s totally my fault. I think I forgot to tell her about wardrobe the last time I talked to her. I’m sorry,” Mia said to Vaughn, as if Cora wasn’t in the room.
“Is my shirt bad? What’s wrong?” Cora asked, her heart pounding.
“I think we’ll be okay, it’s just that black-and-white stripes can make the camera go a little crazy sometimes,” Mia answered.
Cora was shocked that Maggie hadn’t thought of it. Her friend was really off her game.
“Don’t let it throw you, we’ll make it work,” Mia said, reading Cora’s worried expression.
The door on the opposite side of the room opened and Honey the Doberman walked in, trailed by a skinny knit-capped hipster guy Cora assumed was Ryan the intern. He dropped the leash, and Honey made a dash for her.
“Are you my student?” Cora asked the dog as she danced at her feet. “You are very beautiful. Yes you are!” She leaned down to pet her and looked up at Vaughn. “Is she yours?”
“I wish! Do you know Gwen Almquist? The local NBC meteorologist?” Cora nodded. “Honey is her dog. Gwen and I go way back, so she’s doing me a favor by letting us borrow her.”
Cora knelt next to Honey. “So you’re a weather dog! What’s the forecast for tonight?” The dog was surprisingly calm, and she leaned her body against Cora companionably as she stroked her sleek fur.
“Why don’t we get started? Cora, can you test the mic? Just say ‘one two three’ a few times.”
“One-two-three-one-two-three,” Cora intoned seriously. Vaughn looked back at Ryan, who had slipped on a pair of headphones. He gave a silent thumbs-up.
“Good! Off we go! Cora, could you sit in that chair right there?” He pointed to a lone chair in the center of the room. Mia wordlessly walked over, grabbed Honey’s leash, and led her back behind where Vaughn was sitting with his camera. He adjusted a few buttons on the camera and looked up. “We’re just going to start off with a couple of quick questions before you work with Honey. Cool?”
“Cool,” Cora replied, wiping her sweaty palms on her jeans and taking a deep breath. She knew that after facing down the Boozehounds’ barrage of questions she could take anything. She was amazed at how calm she suddenly felt.
“So please state your name and your dog’s name, if you currently have a dog.”
Cora smiled. “My name is Cora Bellamy and my dog’s name is Fritz.”
“What do you like best about Fritz?” Vaughn was looking at the small monitor on the back of the camera, so Cora had no choice but to look directly into its unblinking eye.
“What don’t I like?” She laughed. “Seriously, I’m in love with my dog. It’s sick.” She felt herself lapsing into French but corrected herself before the words came out. “I kiss him on the mouth, like, all the time. But if I had to pick one thing I’d say it was . . . his sensitivity. I pity the next man I date, because no one gets me like Fritz!” Cora knew she was rambling and thought of Maggie yelling at her to be pithy.
Both Vaughn and Mia were smiling.
“What kind of dog is he?”
“He’s a pit bull.”
Vaughn’s eyebrows went up. “Okay, you’re our first pit person. Lots of drama with them these days, right?”
Cora knew what he was implying but didn’t touch on the Ershovich controversy. She willed herself to deliver a calm soundbite. “Everyone has opinions about pits. The sad fact is that most are based on misinformation. My Fritz is a mythbuster and an ambassador. He’s helping to spread the word about how special these dogs are.”
“Way to be, Fritz. Can you tell us about your favorite client?”
“Ooh, that’s a tough one.” Cora paused and looked down. She was drawing a blank, not because she didn’t have any favorites, but because she had so many. “Ummm . . .” She felt her cheeks turning pink. “Uh.” She squirmed in her seat and smiled nervously.
“Okay, how about someone—”
“Wait, I just thought of who it is!” Cora interrupted him. “Sorry! I do have an ultimate favorite!” Vaughn nodded and Cora continued. “His name was Orville and his dog’s name was Skye. He was older than my usual client, by a lot. I think he was in his early seventies. I was worried that he wouldn’t like the way I train, because I’m force-free, and most of my older clients are used to the traditional choke chain kind of stuff that people did a long time ago. Well, not only did he like my training technique but he also amazed me with the stuff he taught Skye on his own. Every week he surprised me with a new trick. He loved tra
ining her with positive methods, and I loved watching them.”
“That’s pretty amazing. You love your job, huh?”
“I do. I’m lucky.” Cora shrugged her shoulders and smiled.
“How do you feel about Boris Ershovich?”
She couldn’t dodge the question this time. Cora paused to gather her thoughts. She knew she should start by mentioning the few good things Ershovich taught people, like the need to exercise their dogs more and brush up on their dogs’ manners, then gently move on to the things that troubled her, and outline, scientifically, why they were unsound and dangerous practices. Reason and rationality would be her allies as she listed her problems with his philosophy.
But instead . . .
“I hate him. I absolutely hate him. He’s a menace. He is single-handedly sending dog training back to the dark ages. He’s a monster that abuses dogs in the name of training, and I wish he would fall off a cliff and disappear forever.”
“Whoa, there. Tell us how you really feel!” Vaughn said, raising an eyebrow.
Cora put her hand over her mouth and looked at Mia, who was staring at the monitor with a shocked expression on her face.
“I’m sorry, that was really inappropriate! I have very strong feelings about him, obviously. Can I start over?” She didn’t wait for them to answer. “I feel that Boris Ershovich uses techniques that have a strong history in traditional dog training but don’t accurately reflect what we now know about the ways dogs learn. I appreciate his advice to exercise dogs more, but I think that the bulk of what he does is dangerous. His show flashes a disclaimer at the beginning telling viewers not to try his techniques at home. That says something. I want people to train the way I train.” She hoped her revised answer negated her passionate one.
Vaughn nodded. “Hm, makes sense.”
Mia scribbled something on her notepad.
“Do you have any experience on TV? Like, any interviews with local media? Stuff like that?” Vaughn asked.
“None. I hope that doesn’t disqualify me.”
“Not at all! You’re what they call a ‘fresh face’! That can be a good thing.” Vaughn smiled at her. “So now I want you to do some work with Honey. I’m going to feed you a few lines and I want you to say them back to me. Honey’s going to be next to you on leash, so try to interact with her as well when you say the lines. Makes sense?”
“Yup.” Cora’s nerves were kicking in. She stood and ran her hands down the front of her pants in an effort to dislodge a wedgie.
Mia walked Honey over to Cora and took the chair away. Cora looked down at the dog and nodded, as if sealing a secret pact with her.
“I want you to introduce yourself and then say, ‘Honey’s people have a big challenge; she jumps on everyone that comes over! I’m here to show them how they can change her behavior and make her the ultimate hostess! Are you ready to get to work, Honey?’ Then you can look down and pet her or something. Got it?”
Cora mumbled the words to herself and nodded. Memorization wasn’t her strong point.
Vaughn paused and looked down at the camera. “Okay, go for it.”
“Hi, I’m Cora and this is Honey, and she jumps on guests! It’s time to show her people how to make her a good hostess. Are you ready, Honey?” She reached rapidly toward Honey to pet her and the dog leaped away, startled by her abruptness. It was as if every bit of Cora’s dogsense had disappeared in an instant.
“Great!” Vaughn said. “Loved it, really good. Can you try it one more time for me, as a safety? Oh, and this time don’t forget to say ‘I’m here to show them’ blah blah blah. We need to establish you as the expert.”
“Yup, sorry about that. I’ll do it again, no problem. Can you repeat it for me one more time though?” Cora felt the blush simmering in her hairline. She was blowing it.
Vaughn said the intro again with the exact inflection and cadence as the first time he said it. He sounded like an actor.
“Ready? Go!”
“Hi, I’m Cora, and this is my friend Honey. Honey’s people have a tough challenge; she jumps on everyone! I’m here to show them how they can change her behavior and make her the ultimate hostess! Let’s get to work, Honey!” She opted to kneel next to Honey when she finished the second take, and the dog stepped closer and licked her face. Cora laughed.
“Right on, that was great! Did you like that one, Mia?” Vaughn turned to her.
“Yup, awesome. Let’s keep going.”
Cora felt like they were rushing her through the process. Where was her applause?
“Now I want you to free form some instruction with Honey. Have you ever taught agility?”
Cora felt her stomach drop. She had never done any dog sport instruction. This audition was over.
“No, not really, but I guess the foundation steps for agility are universal. What do you want me to do?”
Ryan had taken off his headphones and was wheeling a large A-frame, a five-foot-tall triangular structure striped with a blue and yellow granular rubbery substance for traction, to the center of the room. Agility dogs were taught to run up one side and down the other, making sure to touch the yellow contact points at the base of the structure with at least one paw during ascent and descent.
“Why don’t you just play around with Honey and the A-frame? Show us how you would teach her to go up it. And just so you know, she hasn’t done this obstacle yet, so it’ll be new for her. We’re using different equipment with everyone. Brooke had her do the . . . what is that table thingy called?”
“Pause table,” Mia offered.
A pause table was just what it sounded like: a low broad table, like a coffee table with the legs lowered, where the dog was required to take a five-second break between the high-speed obstacles. It was unbelievably simple to get a dog to climb on top the first time, and Cora tried not to feel bitter that Brooke had had such an easy obstacle.
Cora walked over to the intimidating A-frame. It was the first time she’d ever been near one. She unclipped Honey’s leash, and the dog did a quick lap around the room.
“Honey? Come over here, girl!” Her voice lapsed into her typical happy dogspeak pitch, and Honey zoomed back to her. She hoped they couldn’t see the sweat stains forming under her arms.
“Sit,” she said. Honey immediately assumed the position, and Cora reached into her back pocket to grab a treat. “I hope you don’t mind, I brought my own treats,” Cora said slightly apologetically.
“No, that’s great! It’s another glimpse into the way you work,” Vaughn answered. “Now ignore us and keep going. Feel free to talk to the audience through the camera, but don’t talk to us.”
She nodded. Honey stood next to her, waiting for another treat. Cora felt something shift within her and she snapped into dog trainer mode. She forgot about the strange eyes on her, the mic pack protruding from her back pocket, and the unforgiving gaze of the camera. She began talking as if giving casual instructions to one of her clients, and pictured Fran smiling and encouraging her.
“The A-frame looks like a daunting obstacle because of the height, but if you break the process down into pieces, it makes it much easier for the dog,” Cora bluffed. If she had a choice, she would first teach the dog to walk on the A-frame when it was flat on the ground first, instead of attempting to do it when it was five feet high, but she didn’t have that option, so she pressed on.
“I’m going to use a small tasty treat to lure Honey through the initial steps of the process.” Cora stressed the “initial steps” aspect because she knew there was no way Honey was going to go up and over the obstacle right out of the gate. She hoped Mia and Vaughn were dog-savvy enough to realize it.
“I’m going to place the treat right in front of Honey’s nose and use her natural inclination to follow it to move her body to the base of the A-frame.” She demonstrated the luring motion, and Honey followed along as if she already knew the script.
“When she’s right at the bottom, I’m going to mark her position by
saying ‘good!’ and then give her the treat.” Cora handed over the treat, and Honey danced in place.
“Now I’m going to lure her up the ramp just a tiny bit, so that she has to put her front paws on it in order to reach the treat.” Honey stepped up the A-frame to where Cora was holding the treat. She said “good” to mark the dog’s progress and gave her the treat again.
“This is a very smart dog,” Cora said as she smiled at her student. “The next step is to try and get those back feet off the ground and onto the ramp, which can be a little scary for a first-timer.” Cora brought the treat so that it hovered about halfway up the A-frame, and Honey gamely raced toward it to try to reach the treat. Cora misjudged the dog’s speed and drive and was shocked when Honey jumped up to grab the treat and fell off the edge of the A-frame with a dramatic crash. She landed ungracefully next to it.
“Oh, Honey! Oh no, are you okay?” Cora dropped to her knees and petted Honey for a moment and then looked at the camera. She was surprised that Mia and Vaughn remained silent. Honey shook off the fall and looked at Cora expectantly. “That was a bit of a scare for both of us, but Honey’s a trouper and she’s ready to keep going! Let’s give it one more try and end on a high note!” Cora’s voice trembled when she said the word try. She led Honey to the same point on the A-frame and rewarded her when she managed to climb up without incident.
“I think that’s a great place to end today’s lesson. Honey, good job!” Cora looked at Mia and Vaughn again and shrugged her shoulders questioningly.
“Awesome, we loved it! You rolled with Honey’s little accident and made it work. Good stuff,” Vaughn answered.
Mia scribbled in her notebook and then looked at Vaughn. “I think we got everything we need, and that means we’re done for the day! Cora, you’re our final audition.”
“How many did you have?” She petted Honey, who stood close to her in the hopes of getting another piece of freeze-dried chicken.
She counted on her fingers as she quietly rattled off names. “You’re number five.”
“Wow, there’s a lot of interest in this show.”
“There’s definitely interest on the casting side, now we just have to make sure that World of Animals likes what we have to offer.”
Life on the Leash Page 15