Drop Dead on Recall

by Sheila Webster Boneham

  Suzette Anderson bustled to her crate, which was set up next to the grooming table that held Precious the Maltese. She pulled a bottle of spring water from a cooler, poured half into a bowl for her Border Collie, Fly, and took a swig. Suzette and Fly both watched me, and Suzette swiped a tissue across her mouth. “You know, she’s probably back on her feet by now and bitchin’ that you took her dog away. Ms. Drama Queen probably pulled this to cover her bad run.”

  I thought about the color of Abigail’s stricken face when I gave Greg the EpiPen. I didn’t think Abigail had been “pulling” that, but decided to let Suzette blather for the moment. When she seemed to be finished, I said, “I really wasn’t paying attention until she fell. She had a bad run?”

  “She was all over the place. Couldn’t walk a straight line. Maybe she had a little too much Rescue Remedy.” Some people swear by teensy doses of this blend of alcohol and flower essences to dull the sharp edge of competition nerves. “You know, like Stoli to the rescue?”

  In all the time I’ve been around dog shows, I’ve only once seen anyone obviously soused at an obedience trial, and she sure wasn’t a top competitor. I must have looked skeptical, because Suzette said, “She was way off. Seriously. And I wouldn’t put it past her to turn an off day into a major drama. You know how she can be.”

  “No, actually, I don’t know her very well.”

  The howl of the ambulance was close now, and a single tone, true and clean as the ring of a tuning fork, rose behind me and slid upward a quarter tone at a time until it met and mingled with the siren. Some primitive nerve in my body leaped into survival mode, and screamed at me to run for my life, but my modern brain resumed control, replacing fear with a sense of wonder. A second tone chimed in, then a third, and more, until all six Malamute voices merged in a timeless song. I turned and saw them, chins tipped up, ears back, eyes squeezed tight in … what? Remembrance? Desire? A prayer? The building around us seemed to fade to white, and I could imagine that aria rolling across the land ten thousand years ago when wolves hunted and glaciers gnawed out the ravines and lake beds of northern Indiana.

  Suzette’s less melodious tune yanked me back to the present. “Trust me. Abigail’s a major drama queen.” She slugged down more water. “Anyway, I’m sure she’ll be fine. Probably ate something that disagreed with her.” She glanced at some food-smeared trash sitting on top of Pip’s crate and wrinkled her nose.

  “Greg thinks she reacted to a bee sting.”

  “Could be, I guess.” She tossed her water bottle back into the ice chest and pulled her long blonde braid over her left shoulder. “Come on, Fly, let’s go see how we did,” and off she jogged, her black and white dog bouncing and barking beside her.

  I closed my eyes and let the song of the Malamutes wind around me for another moment before I followed Suzette back to the ring. When I arrived, Bob Bradley was hunkered down talking to Greg, who still held his wife. She was definitely not back on her feet. I had the uncharitable thought that this was the first time I’d ever seen Abigail with her mouth shut for more than three minutes, which is how long the dogs have to stay put in novice obedience while their handlers watch silently from across the ring. I recanted mentally, though, as I thought of the scene in the ring and the clear signs that Abigail was in deep trouble.

  4

  The ambulance turned into the fairgrounds at the far end of the grandstand. As its final notes waned, the last strains of the canine accompaniment drifted away on a gust of spring wind. Tony Balthazar paced in circles just inside the gate, his agitation punctuated by a string of lollipop-colored triangles slapping the fence behind him or riding horizontal on the wind. After a quick word with the ambulance driver, Tony hopped onto his golf cart, wheeled it around with as much spin as he could squeeze out of the electric motor, and led the way. A quarter mile into the fairgrounds he braked, hopped off the cart, and pulled apart two sections of the portable wooden fencing that defined the western perimeter of the competition ring.

  Two EMTs sprinted past him through the gate. Greg spoke to them while they checked that Abigail had a pulse and was breathing. One of them opened Abigail’s mouth, inserted a tongue depressor, and checked her throat. The EMT looked like a fourteen-year-old gymnast, tiny and quick, with blonde hair pulled into a perky ponytail. She wasted no motion and no time. Neither did her partner, a muscular dark-skinned man with shaved head, who was busy inserting an IV into Abigail’s arm.

  Greg and the blonde EMT both checked their watches. The EMT fished in her bag for a moment and came out with a syringe and drug vial. She loaded the syringe and emptied it into Abigail’s arm. By then the driver had arrived with the stretcher.

  Bob Bradley guided Abigail’s distraught husband out of the way. As he rose into a wobbly stand, Greg glanced around. “Where’s the dog?” he asked, scanning the ring and surrounding area, his eyes widening as his head turned. “Where’s Pip?” The last word was barely audible.

  I hurried over and laid my hand on Greg’s arm. “You asked me to take Pip, remember? I put him in his crate.”

  He didn’t seem to understand, if he even heard me, so I tried again.

  “Don’t worry about Pip. If you and Abigail aren’t back before I leave, I’ll take him with me. You can pick him up on your way home, or he can stay the night.”

  I had always liked Greg and now I felt sorry for him, although I’d always been flummoxed by his devotion to Abigail. She was no more considerate of him than she was of anyone else, at least not in public. It was always “Greg, do this! Greg, you did that wrong!” I’m not a big fan of electronic bark collars on dogs, but there were times I’d thought of strapping one to Abigail’s elegant neck to stop her yapping.

  Greg nodded, his focus on the stretcher bearing his wife. “I don’t understand. The epinephrin should have worked by now.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s been twenty minutes since the first shot, twelve since the second.” His voice cracked and he cleared his throat.

  The EMTs pulled the bed of the stretcher up, locked it into position, and wheeled it the few feet over bumpy grass toward the ambulance, where each picked up an end and slid it into the waiting vehicle.

  I touched Greg’s arm. “If Abigail isn’t back on her feet tomorrow, I’ll pack up your stuff and take it home with me. You do what you need to do. Now go.”

  And off he went, the panic back and bright in his eyes.

  I watched him climb into the ambulance, and when it reached the fairgrounds exit, I turned back to the ring, where Bob Bradley and Tony Balthazar conferred. Then Bob stepped toward the spectators and asked for everyone’s attention. “Folks, we’re going to take the lunch break a little early. We’ll resume this class in one hour, at eleven o’clock, and bump the other classes back accordingly.” He looked like he could use something a tad stronger than the water and soft drinks offered in the judge’s tent. Maybe a quart of Rescue Remedy would help.

  5

  I sank into my blue canvas folding chair, stretched my legs out in front of me, and looked around. Tom’s chair and his dog’s crate were empty, and I mentally slapped myself for noticing. What did I care? As if he could read my mind, Jay stared at me from the crate beside my chair and sneezed. “I do not care where they are,” I said, and he sneezed again.

  With the unscheduled break, and six more dogs to do their individual runs, plus the group stays, the Open class wouldn’t finish before noon. The crowd had scattered as soon as the ambulance pulled out, and only a few people and pooches remained outside the obedience ring.

  I opened my cute new purple soft-sided cooler and pulled out a bottle of water and a carrot. Jay watched expectantly while I opened the bottle and took a drink. I glanced at the water bucket hanging inside the door of his little home away from home. He had plenty of water. I took a little bite of the carrot and watched a thin glob of drool trickle from the corner of my dog’s lips, then unzip
ped the roof opening enough to slip the carrot through. Jay gripped it delicately with his incisors, dropped it onto the floor of the crate, and gave me a “Thanks!” look as he licked his lips. Then he got to work, attacking the carrot in the center and taking bites along the length as if it were a cob of corn. Every one of my dogs has had a personal carrot-handling technique, like people with sandwich cookies.

  I pulled a fleece throw from the back of my chair, unfolded it, and draped it over myself to cut the wind. The lilacs blooming on the perimeter of the fairgrounds perfumed the air, and a hint of early honeysuckle blew in from time to time. I heard clapping and whooping from a distant ring. Most of the dogs were frisky in the cool air, but the wind was a few degrees too cool for a sedentary naked ape. The polar fleece helped.

  I rested my head against the back of the chair and shut my eyes for just a minute. Three quarters of an hour later, I snapped back to consciousness when I heard Jay sit up in his crate. He gave me The Look .

  “You need to go out, Bubby?” Jay cocked his head, so I pushed myself out of the chair and reached for my leash as I unzipped the crate. Jay waited. I can’t say he was patient, but he knew better than to bolt through an open door with the alpha bitch—yours truly—in the way. I fastened the leash to his collar, then calmly said, “Free,” his off-duty signal. He squirted out of his crate and bounced straight up to look me in the eye. Down. Up. Down. Up. His feet never touched me. “You big goof.” He stopped bouncing and grinned at me, eyes bright and butt awriggle. I grabbed a plastic bag and stuffed it into my pocket. “Off we go!”

  We spent about twenty minutes walking around the field east of the parking area. Jay sniffed everything, stopping to mark several Canadian thistles, a couple of fence posts, and a concrete block half hidden in a clump of wild something at the east edge of the field. He also did a little organic recycling, and as I stooped to collect his deposit in my plastic bag, I thought about Abigail.

  Why didn’t the epinephrin work as quickly as Greg thought it would? Was it an allergic reaction after all, or something else? I couldn’t remember ever seeing Abigail look anything but in the pink. In fact, I had the impression she was something of a health nut. Not that I’m opposed to being healthy, but there are limits to how much pleasure I’ll forego or pain I’ll endure. Don’t even think about feeding me tofu unless it’s camouflaged in hot and sour soup!

  Could Abigail have had a heart attack or a stroke? She was young and in great shape, but it was possible. Could it have been a seizure of some sort? I guessed we’d know soon enough. I checked my watch and figured we had time for Jay to get a drink and rest a few minutes in his crate and for me to run to the porta-potty before we needed to warm up. And there might be news from the hospital by now.

  6

  “Anything?” Tom Saunders and his dog had returned by the time I got back to the obedience ring.

  “Not that I’ve heard.” I caught myself checking him out again, and not just because of the way he wore his jeans. I’d seen Tom a few times training at Dog Dayz, and competing at obedience trials with his black Labrador Retriever, Drake, who now stood at the man’s knee, his tail waving gently. I guessed Tom was about my age, early fifties. Life had roughed him up enough to add interest. Laugh lines radiated from his eyes, and an intriguing scar like a question mark divided his chin a tad left of center. Silver highlights ran through his collar-length brown hair and moustache, and he had that knee-melting smile and knew how to use it.

  “Gotta get over there. Drake qualified.” He grinned again, and trotted his big dog to the gate, where the ring steward was assembling the class qualifiers. I was admiring both rear views when I noticed Tony Balthazar standing near the gate, listening to his cell phone. His forehead furrowed and the corners of his mouth went rigid as he tucked the phone back into his pocket.

  “Hey, Janet! What’s up? Why was that ambulance here earlier?” Connie Stoppenhagen was coiffed and polished, as always, as if she’d just stepped off a movie set. She’s the only dog-show person I know who never has dog spit or paw prints on her clothes, or a hair out of place on herself or her dogs. She shows Poodles, toys and miniatures, with great success. We’d been friends ever since we met in my veterinarian’s waiting room a decade ago. “Someone get hurt?”

  “They were doing the drop on recall and Abigail Dorn collapsed.”

  “Isn’t the dog supposed to be the one who drops?” Connie cocked her head and blinked at me, looking for a laugh, but having seen Abigail I wasn’t amused. “Sorry. That was bad.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, if it had been anyone else, I wouldn’t have thought it, you know.”

  “I know.” I did, too. Abigail didn’t exactly go out of her way to make friends.

  “I’m surprised to see Greg here.”

  “He always comes to Abigail’s events.”

  Connie didn’t look capable of snorting, with her perfect strawberry-blonde hair, unsmudged makeup, and tailored peach suit, but snort she did. “Where have you been? They’re separated, and I gather it’s not all that friendly.”

  “Hunh.” I digested that information. “I did wonder about the setup when I crated Pip.”

  “Maybe Greg’s here on his own showing Percy?”

  Connie obviously didn’t spend much time around the Dorns.

  “I don’t think Percy is into obedience. Abigail’s always harping on Greg to ‘train that damn dog.’”

  “Ah, but that’s what harpies do, is it not? Gotta hand it to her, though. Passing out in the middle of an exercise certainly is a creative way to dodge a bad score.”

  There it was again. Maybe Suzette wasn’t just being snide earlier. “I thought she and Pip had been doing great.”

  “They have, but she told me this morning that she felt all discombobulated. Said she tripped over Pip while warming up, and he’d been shy of her on left turns ever since.” Connie commented on an Irish Setter gleaming like a polished penny in a distant ring, then picked up the Abigail thread again. “She did seem really agitated this morning. She kept tripping and dropping things. Nerves, I guess.”

  Connie’s comment didn’t make sense to me. Abigail had competed, and won, against the best obedience dogs and handlers in the country. “But this isn’t a big trial. Why would she be nervous?”

  “Who knows? She doesn’t like to lose.” She crinkled her nose. “But who does?” She glanced at her watch and said she’d see me later.

  Bob Bradley had finished checking his scores, and was inviting the qualifiers into the ring. He led a round of applause for the stewards, the overworked, undervalued volunteers who keep things rolling. Then Bob, a history professor at Indiana University, explained that to qualify a dog must earn more than fifty percent on each exercise and one hundred seventy out of two hundred possible points. “In other words, dogs have to get a solid B to pass, whereas my students at I.U. only need a D.” That got a few chuckles.

  Bob glanced at the paper in his hand. “Seven of the ten dogs in this class qualified. Good job, folks!” There was more applause, a couple of whoops, and a series of staccato yips from an appreciative Sheltie. Then Bob identified the four dogs who got the highest scores, including Tom and Drake with a respectable 192 and third place.

  First place went, not unexpectedly, to Suzette Anderson and her Border Collie, Fly, with a fabulous 199, which probably put them out front for their zillionth High in Trial award, given to the dog with the highest score from the regular obedience classes. Suzette also trained at Dog Dayz, where Jay and I train, and I knew from the newsletter that she and Fly were kicking butt this year.

  As Bob finished handing out ribbons, Tony shuffled into the ring and mumbled, “Congratulations to all the winners and qualifiers.” He cleared his throat. “Um, I have some rather bad news, I’m afraid.” He coughed. “I just spoke to Mr. Dorn at the hospital, and, umm, I’m afraid that, u
mm, uh, Mrs. Dorn, the lady who became ill here in the ring a little while ago, uh …” He made a strangling sound and dabbed his glossy forehead with a crumpled hanky, then squared his shoulders and continued. “Umm, she passed away en route to the hospital.”

  In the dead calm that followed I saw Suzette Anderson smiling at Fly.

  7

  Rumors raced around the show grounds like whippets in a field of bunnies. A woman from Illinois told me that Abigail had a stroke. Heart attack was a popular option, and aneurysm got a few votes. Some people thought Abigail had an asthma attack. Several who were ringside when Abigail went down suggested diabetic shock, thinking the injections were insulin, although no one remembered ever seeing Abigail with any medical paraphernalia. Anaphylactic shock from a bee sting got only one vote (not that I was keeping track). Oddly enough, no one asked me what was in the syringe I had retrieved for Greg. I guess they didn’t want to confuse themselves with facts.

  Suzette Anderson strolled over with Fly and asked what I’d heard. Her eyes and nose were red and moist, and she fiddled with a sodden tissue while I told her about the epinephrin. “That’s odd. I was with Abby when she had to use her EpiPen a couple of times. It worked really fast.” Suzette dragged the back of her hand across her wet cheekbone. Give me a break, I thought, recalling the potshots she’d taken at Abigail earlier. She went on, “She probably died of plain old hard-headedness. I’ll miss her, though.” Yeah, right. She stroked Fly’s cheek with the backs of her fingers as they walked away, and although I was skeptical about Suzette’s claim to sorrow, I was also surprised to feel a wave of sadness and regret wash through me. For a moment my sense of generalized loss was so sharp that I couldn’t move. I took several deep breaths as memories of my own lost loves and opportunities beat and prodded the folds of my heart. Jay, always alert to my moods, uttered a low whine and brought me back to the present, and I got him out of his crate to warm up.