Winner's Dog

Well, this is not exactly the entry I thought I would be writing tonight.

All yesterday, I stewed an essay in my head. That essay started with waxing dramatic about the laying down of the leash and the sparky thin choke chain. I had decided over the past week that if my dog did not perform well, I was going to "retire" him from the conformation ring.
It didn't mean I was giving up working him, just that we were going to turn our nose in a different direction, and concentrate on obedience instead, or agility. I have struggled with this for a long time, because I really wanted to "finish" him (get the 15 points needed for him to be a Champion, and therefore deemed more valuable to breed).

It had started to seem, though, like we were banging our head up against the wall. After two days in Canton last fall and two days in Navasota the previous weekend with no wins and our spotty history in previous shows, I was beginning to feel that I was not getting anywhere fast, and that I was wasting a lot of money doing it.
The dog was turning five this year and had only enough wins to count on one hand. Last weekend, a girl I had seen at several shows was watching the Best of Breed competition with me. We were both marveling over one of the "specials", Rowan, when I mentioned to the girl I was thinking about retiring my dog.
"Your blue boy?", she says. I nod and tell her he hasn't been placing and I don't think he is going to. "Yeah, he's not the kind of dog that wins around here," she says nonchalantly, and turns her eyes back to the ring.

I am not sure exactly what she was intending to mean, but as I mulled it over, I looked at the dogs in the ring and could see what she meant. It seemed that, compared to these "specials", my dog was missing something. He was long and lean where those dogs were stocky and compact. He was artistry in motion, while those dogs were balanced and thick in hair and barrel. That's not to say he's not beautiful, but I am a bit partial.
At this week's show in Crosby, I set up near this same girl again. The first day of the weekend show, we got "dumped". Third place out of three in the class. I drove home, examining how I felt about the idea of not showing him in conformation again. I realized very quickly that suprisingly, I felt at peace with the whole thing.

I related it to my relationship with my horse, or how I felt about selling him. My dream had been to belong with him forever. My dream with Scout was one of points, ribbons, puppies, knowledge, but in both, what I really wanted was an extraordinary connection with an animal. I wanted to be able to demonstrate that I could be exceptional by working with a challenging animal - in Bullseye's case, a formerly abused, fearful horse, and in Scout's case, a "green" dog wiht a "green" owner/handler. By selling the horse, by retiring the dog, what I am really saying is "I give up on you", and that is a really hard thing for me to do. All who know me know I don't give up easily, but nor do I always get what I want.

At any rate, retirement was actually started to sound better and better. I was almost out of all my grooming sprays and coat conditioners and was glad to be rid of the grooming stand...for a while. Not forever. In my mind, there is already another puppy on the horizon, one I will have the experience to guide and show correctly, from the beginning. One I pick based on what I have learned from this time listening and watching, one to grow on. I realized as I drove home that I don't think I want to stop showing dogs altogether.
I will admit I still get a little thrill out of the whole thing, out of cutting and blow-drying his hair on the grooming stand, of walking into the arena in my suit with "bait" in the pocket and him bouncing beside me, and most of all, of hearing, "Australian Sheperd, Open Blue, Catalog Order Please!", and walking in to begin the short production of trying to present the dog in its best angles. It is the constant stream of undesirable ribbons that begins to get me down. My husband and I joke about the possible uses of all the blue ribbons he has won, but under the joke is the sad fact that there are just not enough purple ribbons to make it worth the gas and effort.

This second day of the show, I agonized over every inconvenience. I contemplated skipping the show and going to church instead, I groaned about waking up early, I almost didn't want to do any grooming at all. It felt like a waste of effort, but I did it all anyway.

I decided I was going to go out with a bang, and got him ring ready. When we were standing outside the ring waiting for our turn, a woman looked at Scout and said to me, "He's a nice dog". When dog show folks say nice, it doesn't usually mean friendly. I told her thanks, and mentioned I was thought so, too, but I was going to retire him, since he couldn't seem to win. She told me she thought he could be finished, that he was really nice.

Then she asked me if I remembered she and her friend, from the show in Canton. They were the ones who helped me out, when I had a flat tire and had bummed a ride to the show. "He should have won his class yesterday", the one said. "I liked him the best of all of them". They asked about his breeding. "Who's he out of again?" "Who's he by?" They recognized the lines on both sides, and also were aware that his dam passed away last week.

They asked me if I was interested in their opinion after our class, if they could see any handler flaws or glaring conformation issues. This is what I wanted to do. Is it the dog, or is it me? I have wondered. I have contemplated getting a handler for a couple of years, because at least I could eliminate that issue.

We went in for our class, Open Blue, and were picked for first. When I came back out, the woman was excited. She told me she saw a couple of handling issues we could tweak, and she said basically my dog is correct, that he has very little flaws. She mentioned a back toe that pokes out and sometimes the front falls apart, but that all could be stacked out, and that the dog free stacks very well himself anyway. She quickly explained to me how to correct something I was doing wrong with the front legs, and then sent me back in the ring for round two. Again, my dog was selected for the first place, a purple ribbon for the Winner's Dog.

When I came out of the ring this time, there were a lot of congrats, and a girl I had met at previous shows through the years but who had never been very friendly to me (Shelley) gave me a piece of venison jerky for the bait for the next round. "Get some animation in him," she says, "Keep it for the class". Then we went back in to compete for Best of Breed, which I figured would go to the special, and my new friends were behind me going "Psst! Now lift his neck up! Show him the bait!" I was glad that they really wanted him to win, despite my handling.

After the judge selected him for Best of Winners (giving the Best of Breed to the "special" - a dog named Badge), she shoke my hand and said "I really liked your dog".

Everyone told me this judge was "mean" and yelled a lot, but this day, when we got our pictures taken, she told me again she liked him, and "sorry I didn't put you up for Breed". It was the nicest thing a judge has ever said to me.

Afterwards, I had a mini handling clinic with the women from the Canton show. Both of them, one whose dog beat me yesterday, were just admiring how nice he was. They mentioned a couple of minor flaws (he's rolling a bit in the hind, probably because of the short upper arm, but you can exercise him more and that will help, his coat's a little thin but that shouldn't matter that much) and pointed out some grooming errors. They felt sure that with some tweaking in my handling, he could and should finish.

It made me see things differently. The day before, I had thought that maybe it was neither one of our faults that we couldn't make it work. Maybe it was just fate, just the luck of the draw that he would stay small and light while the other dogs got husky and thick with fur. Maybe I had just been trying to shove a circle into a square peg, just not the right shape to get the job done.

Today, I see it completely differently. Imperfect practice is, after all, still imperfect, and my vision hasn't gotten good enough to see us completely objectively.

This woman fills me up and gives me the courage to keep going. If the road is not getting us there, it is time to change something, but maybe not slow our stroll. "Maybe put him with a handler, just to finish him", she says. "If you could afford it."

"Or," she says, "I could show him for you. I wouldn't charge you very much."

A bit later, I am getting ready to leave, and see Sharon again, the one I had set up by and talked to this and last weekend. I told her a bit about where I had been, and she also offers to show him for me, saying she could probably finish him for me. I tell her I am going to get her card before I leave, but I leave without seeing her again.

That's okay. I have a card in my shoe, given to me by the lady who was so helpful to me today.

I turn the card over in my hand and smile a little when I see her name. It just seems so fitting.

Hope.

SILLY RABBIT
The past three nights, I've been having these dreams about an exboyfriend. The emotional context has been wrapped around a place, a city, a house, something that was his and then was mine and then becoming his again. I was afraid, worried, wanted to call the place mine but knowing it was his, wondering what he would think of me when he found the little sippy cup stains on the carpet or dust behind the couch.

It seems pretty transparent, the meaning behind the dreams. I have these kind of dreams now and then about him, a dream like I am living in his town, and I am worried he might find my house, and then he is moving in, and the shutters are falling off or the lawn needs mowing.

It is fairly close to the way it was with us, the way I think about him now, so the meaning doesn't bear a mystery for me. The reasoning is more of the mystery - why now, why so often?

Yesterday a sudden strong desire came over me to write to my favorite professor, the one whose job I wanted to have one day, the one who wrote letters of recommendation for graduate schools that turned me down, one after another. I wanted to have the same degree he has, have the same kind of influence, the same kind of life. It was my plan for my life, until my plan got derailed, and I've been reluctant to contact him since then.

I really wanted his opinion, though, so I sent him an email, told him what I was doing and if he could meet with me or carry on a conversation over the email about some questions I had.

He sent me a delighted response, and in his email, he stated that he remembered me, having dinner with me and Temple Grandin. He had invited me to his house to eat and talk with him and Temple, who is the "Numero Uno big dog" in the field I wanted to pursue, and who happened to teach graduate studies in Colorado. She and I outlined a plan for a PhD dissertation project, talking about funding, and then....I never applied to her school.

My reasons were complicated. Later down the road, I tried to get back on that horse, but instead of trying to go through her, or through my professor, I tried four other schools where no one knew me. Turns out that was a bit of a problem. Apparently you have to know someone on the inside.

Today, I was thinking about what he said in his email, that he remembered feeling sad at the time that I wasn't choosing to pursue graduate studies there with him.

When I had read that line, I was overwhelmed with gratitude. He had believed in me, he had wanted me to be his student. I remember talking with him one day, towards the end of my final year, and he gave me kind of a sideways glance over his glasses as he mumbled something about an open position with his department, a job for someone who would be interested in going to horse auctions (I mean, yippee! That is my favorite kind of place!), and I knew it was his way of inviting me to stay on, and I knew he also knew I was leaving. I wanted to go to Colorado so bad, I couldn't see the forest for the mountains.

Later, I cursed myself for not taking his offer. Oh sure, I already had a horsemanship position secured in Colorado. Sure, it would have taken some rearranging to do it. I had already given up my apartment, made moving plans. My boyfriend, the one I have been dreaming about, was all for it. It was perfect, he said, I could move in with him, and then surely the job would turn into a graduate student position, and I could get my PhD, and we could get married, and....

Hold on right there. That's right. I know without a doubt that if I had stayed on, I would have made my dreams for my life come true. I know my boyfriend wouldn't have let it happen any other way. He would have been there urging me on and pushing me ahead and holding my hand through every bit of it. I also know that he would have become my husband and that thought really scares me....

I had a dream about him once, when I lived in Oregon, that seemed rather poignant. In it, he brought a rabbit into the veterinarian's office where I worked. We had worked on his rabbit, some kind of back surgery, and then his estranged brother brought the rabbit back in, because now it couldn't hop. The rabbit wasn't perfect before, but now it was nonfunctional. It couldn't even move. I went to tell my doctor about it and she just looked at me like I was stupid and said, "Of course. That's the side effect of the surgery." I didn't get it. This phrase kept repeating in my mind, and still I think of it:

Why was the cure worse than the disease?

Hearing my professor voice his emotions, though, made me realize something. I made him sad. I did that to him, and in any effort to apologize, I should explain it wasn't an affront to him. He probably wonders what the heck happened to me, and sometimes in the course of the years when I have contacted him, I've glossed over a brief explanation, "I was raising my family and put my academic aspirations on hold for the meantime", but I know that my flimsy excuses don't hold water. They are probably as transparent as the dreams, although the reasoning probably warrants a mystery.

I don't want to tell him the real truth, the real truth on why College Station makes me nervous, why I never asked him if he could just let me in his program after all this time and wanting the things that never happened for me. I don't want to tell him because it makes me look really crazy to say something like look I constantly felt my parents never loved me, I felt rejected by them, not good enough, which caused me not to believe in myself, although I covered it up with a thick line of bravado, you see, so that no one would ever guess how really pathetic and worthless I felt, and I couldn't apply to your school or her school or any school that might offer me a chance of success and satisfaction, because I never thought I deserved it, so I just kept running away from what I really wanted, but several counseling sessions later, I am a much better person and no longer intentionally sabotage personal relationships that offer a chance of happiness and no longer choose escape patterns but face these inadequacies directly, which is why I am here now.

I know it is, in part, this background I have that makes me good at what I do. I am empathic to animals because their true wishes and desires are hard for them to express to humans. I want to be their champion and stand up for them, be the voice for those who cannot speak for themselves. I want to wrap my arms around them and tell them it's okay, that somebody loves them, that someone is going to look out for them. I want to make them as comfortable as possible and treat them with kindness. I want to treat them the way I want to be treated.

My true talent with animals is in calming the anxious animal, because I see in them parts of myself. I know what it is like to live with anxiety and fear, to want to run away and be unable to. This is why I chose my horse, as he was an outcast and headed for a rough ending. I sensed that underneath his explosive interior, he was a bundle full of nerves. We spoke the same language.

We had a fear-aggressive Newfoundland dog where I used to work who was frequently boarded and needed his ears cleaned often. He had severe chronic ear problems that gave him great pain, and previously, he was dealt with by a combination of being drugged and held down with force by several technicians. I didn't want that for him, so it became my goal to be able to work on him unsedated, solo, without any stress. It took some work to get him to trust me and allow me to touch the painful places, but we did it, laying in our quiet corner of the clinic. These are the things I am good at that no one ever sees. Give me a growling Rottweiler and I'll make it golden, give me a frightened monkey and I'll get it eating out of my hand.

This is where I get confused on my own issues, because I know my worth, and I know I have value. I know I have skills in this way, and that these skills are a result of my education, my background, my perceptiveness, and my intelligence. I know the understanding of animal behavior that I possess is worth something, if not a PhD, than at least more money or acknowledgement. So what am I still afraid of?

At one point a few years back, I thought that maybe I needed closure with this old boyfriend. I thought talking to him again would stop the dreams from happening, and dissolve that heavy knot of tension I had every time I went through College Station. I was driving through the town often around this time and I wanted to not experience the anxiety that the possibility of running into him caused. We opened up a dialogue, but he shut it down a few long emails into it, saying that it brought back old feelings for him. He's married now and he didn't think he should maintain a friendship with me because he couldn't help revisiting the emotions that a remembrance of our relationship caused. I kind of understand, but it makes me angry sometimes, too. Why can't he compartmentalize like I do? I tried to shut him off at that pass by downplaying our connection and focus on the friendship we had, but I think that hurt his feelings. This dialogue did nothing for the dreams and the anxiety, though.

When I think about the possibility of meeting up with my old professor to further discuss some of these ideas I am asking him about, and consider applying for his program at this point in my life, I think about College Station, driving to College Station, and suddenly I am a rabbit looking for a hole. I'm scared.

It makes no sense to me. Is it that I know I am good enough, but I worry they will think I am not? Or is it that I worry I am not good enough, but they know I always was?

I can't get away from the fact, though, that sometimes my escape maneuvers hurt people, leave them disappointed in me, maybe because they saw so much more potential than I was allowing, or that they wanted me to be happy and successful. Although it is unintentional, collateral damage, I know it is not right to hurt people, and I shouldn't do that.

Starting with myself.

Soapbox

Excuse me while I climb up on this thing a minute....


Now I know I hardly ever get up here. I am not really one to go off about something. My strong desire for personal freedom means I rarely tell people what to do. But a conversation at work today really hit me, and I wanted to take this time to talk about something very important.

Nuts.
You heard me. Nuts.
As in dog nuts.
As in they should come off.


My friend at work is always talking to me about his dog. Come to think of it, most of them do talk to me about their dogs, probably because they know how much I love dogs and they are trying to establish that common ground. This friend, though, his stories about his dog always involve his dog running away, being gone, or having just come back from running away. He is always asking me how he can stop this from happening, and every time I ask, "does he still have his nuts?"
He tried telling me he wasn't sure and asked how you could tell. "Well, you know what they feel like, right? Just reach on back there." (folks, don't try this at home if you don't know how your dog will react to a personal grope - I only told him this because I could tell from what he told me about his dog that he could get away with something like this).
Anyway, the other day he brought me a picture of his dog, and I said, "Oh look," putting my finger over part of the picture,"there's his nuts. Still haven't gotten those taken off, eh?"
He smiles and says, "I still want him to be able to...have fun...you know?"
Oh boy. Come on, other techs out there, voice your opinion - would you have set this guy straight?
"At whose expense?" I asked him. I told him about the overpopulation of our animal shelters, how there are thousands of unwanted puppies born every year, not enough homes for them, that someone has to kill them, and that I know that because I used to be that person, the one who had to euthanize America's leftover dog population. I told him a little about the medical expenses the owner of the lucky female whom he impregnates might have to deal with, especially since he is a large dog and who knows what size she might be (can you define "dystocia"?), about the risk to her and the risk to his life if he continues to roam as a result of his testerone driven brain.

All this might seem hypocritical of me if you consider the fact that I myself have an unneutered male dog. However, there is a difference. My dog is never allowed to roam free, would never be allowed to, and if he ran away even for an hour I would be freaking out and be building a new fence. He will only be allowed to breed to another registered purebred Australian Sheperd who also has a superior pedigree and who has traits complementary to his own, and only after he passes a brucellosis test and has his hips OFA certified. He has had his nuts now for the entire three and a half years of his life and has never been called to use them, mostly because he has not proven himself as a champion show dog yet. The entire reason for the sport of competition conformation is to assess the quality of an animal as compared to the breed standard to determine reproductive fitness. If all of those things I mentioned above make me sound elistist, so be it.

I remember when working at the animal shelter being offended when I heard that one of the local veterinarians recommended that her clients not adopt from the shelter. She suggested that if people were looking for a dog, they should only buy it from a reputable breeder at a certain age and with certain characteristics and health background. At the time, I was trying to get dogs out the door of the shelter before they ended up on the "kill floor". We euthanized 125 dogs every other day. This was in a small town, by the way. We had five dogs per kennel and some of the saddest doggy scenarios you can ever imagine.

Now, though, I understand. In a perfect world, there would be no need for animal shelters. No one would ever buy a puppy from a pet store because they would understand those puppies come from puppy mills and have sketchy health and genetic history. Don't even get me started on Trader's Village or any of these facilities where large amounts of unvaccinated puppies are sold en masse off of floors contaminated with parvo and bordetella spores. In a perfect world, we would all be select our puppies based on what breed would be best for our family lifestyle, and we would keep our pets until they died of old age and not surrender them to the shelter when we wanted to move. I used to get so angry when I volunteered at the animal shelter in Austin and I would see on surrender form as the reason for surrender: "moving to apartment that does not allow pets". You have a choice, people! There are apartments out there that do allow pets (although I will say it is getting harder to find), and when you assume responsibility for an animal's life, that is a part of the deal. I have had to live in an apartment since I have had dogs, and I just choose the apartment that allows them and pay the small pet deposit.

Anyway, it makes me really upset when people do not think about the consequences of their actions, particularly when it will affect the life of an animal. This is why a recent situation involving my friend had me so worked up. It is not enough to simply "own" an animal; you must practice responsibility for your animal along with that. It is part of the bargain. If your male dog is a mixed breed, has a habit of roaming, or has ever shown aggression (whether you believe it or not people), please....get those nuts removed. They won't even miss them and it won't take away from the dog's personality or his or your "manliness".

Elephant Bones

They say that elephants never forget. Having closer contact with elephants than the average person, I cannot attest to that myself with any certainty, having been unable to understand their thoughts completely. However, I find it intriguing that elephants in the wild are known to return to "elephant graveyards", even if they have never been there themselves in their lifetime, and to stroke the bones of the deceased with their trunks, perhaps reliving ancestral memories, or mourning the loss of a former beloved.

Now, naturally, they are trying to find scientific reasons for this phenomenon. http://www.animalliberationfront.com/News/2005_11/ElephantGraveyard.htm


I have been know to stroke the bones of memory myself, but commonly I forgot some details. Then something happens, like seeing a picture from the past, that jogs that memory, and the details come flooding back. Then I, like the elephant, remember everything.



Like for instance, a place in the picture I saw in my virtual world. It would be incongrous for the casual reader, but for me, it is a shock to the system, a visual reminder of a sweet moment in my lifetime. We were there, once, you and I, and under that waterfall you sang a song in my ear, a song that I have never been able to listen to since without my heart breaking, no breach in the wall that they put there it hasn't been able to pass through.
In that remembrance, history flows back uninvited and without warning. I remember everything about the weekend we spent there, starting with the beginning, with the book you read as you waited for me, a tire change in the rain on the side of the highway, the electic restaurant choice in Austin, even the rag I bought from the street pedaler down on Sixth Street. I remember making love under the stars on top of the vehicle when we finally arrived, and the words you murmured then that struck a chord in my soul. I remember stolen moments, such as a requested song on the guitar, the Patsy Cline tune that rolled across the lake from the tourist boat out on the water, the ham and cheese and croissants in the kitchen, the questions from the family, the boundaries crossed and uncrossed. I remember a walk outside at night, and how it struck me, that entity that lived and breathed around us, the realization that two people could create something that had a life of its own and was stronger than the individuals involved, that two could make One that was bigger and better, and almost palpable. I remember holding a hand as we drove, and looking over in disbelief that my hand was joined with one that belonged to such a marvelous creature, as you looked over and told me a story about an object made for me, a most beautiful object, and I could not believe that I could inspire one like you.
I remember getting lost on the way home, and ending up spending the night at another lake, holed up inside the car listening to cheesy love songs, and how we laughed at them and ourselves because they seem to be written for us, and how we made love during the night.

Oh yes, I remember everything. For years, I was tormented by those sweet memories. The torment caused a restlessness in my soul that I tried to soothe through various ways. I tried to fuck the memories out of my system, but the lovers were just a series of bandaids over a gushing artery. The relief was only temporary, and then I was back to the void inside.
I began to put a name on it, this terrible feeling of loss, and it almost became a living, breathing beast of a creature that lurked near my bed and inhabited my dreams at night. Life itself forced me to finally push those memories aside, for there was no other way to deal with them. It left an endelible mark on my soul, however, and will forever be a part of who I have become.


I think of the elephants I worked with, and my first exposure to the difference in free and protected contact. There was a "bad" elephant, who could only be worked with from behind bars and even then, only at a safe distance. She was prone to bursts of naughty behavior, which could be very dangerous as one would expect in an animal of her size. Even from behind the bars, one had to keep their distance. One time, the supervisor got too close, and was grabbed by this elephant's trunk and slammed against the bars, causing broken ribs.



One of the other keepers told me a little of her history. He had worked with her in the past, and then had returned to find her temperament and handling changed. He said that she used to be as friendly and trustworthy as the other elephant, whom was allowed to go on walks in the zoo, carry people on her back, and was handled freely and without fear by us. She had suffered badly at the hands of a mean keeper, though, in his absence. She never forgot, and it changed her inside. She developed nasty behaviors towards people, and could never be trusted again.
She never forgot how she was treated, and never really got over it, although she had learned to deal with it in some way. She did not show malicious behavior while I worked with her, but the threat was always under the surface, lurking, like the beast in my heart.

Although my memories are not maleovent like the elephant's in the story, they did keep me from being content in my life. For years, I ached from them, but time dulled the ages for a while, until I find myself in the elephant's graveyard of memories, stroking the bones and remembering the life they once possessed.

These bones, they hum Stone Roses.