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.

A DEEPER LOOK

CANTON AND SURROUNDING AREAS (postscript)

The last day in Canton, we woke up to a phone call from the hotel management that 1) we were parked on a handicapped spot (the paint had worn off and we couldn't see it in the dark when we pulled up that night) and 2) our tire was flat.

We went out to look and sure enough, that was one flat tire. No air in that baby at all.

With less than two hours before ring time, we had to make a plan fast. We checked out of the hotel and made it to the gas station next door to try to air it up enough to make it to the tire shop. No dice. There was a big hole somewhere.

I am sitting on the curb and Lara is pushing me to figure out what I am going to do.

We've already decided that she is going to stay with the car until AAA gets there to change out the tire. She is going to handle that, and I need to decide if I am going to make it to the show, and if so, I've got to go, now, and figure out how to get there.

It is only about a mile down the road but I can't walk my dog across the highway with all his gear and my show clothes. She keep asking me what I am going to do, and for some reason I don't want to tell her what my plan is.

I am just going to sit here and wait for a miracle.

That is what I keep thinking when she asks me, but I don't tell her that. Instead I half heartedly agree with her plan to walk over to the hotel and try to hitch a ride. I start walking, wondering how this plan is going to work. Am I just going to hang out at the hotel hoping I see someone loading up for the show as well and ask for a ride? What if I don't see anyone in time? I know there are other dog show folk there, but how do I know which rooms they are in? What if I don't see anyone in time?

That's when it hits me. God helps those who help themselves. God doesn't want us to sit around waiting for a miracle. He wants us to make miracles happen.

And my miracle is right in front of me. I notice, finally, that the van that has been gassing up in front of us the whole time we were talking has dog kennels in the back. I talk to the man and he doesn't mind taking Scout and I to the show. He was just getting ready to head back to the hotel for his Dobermans that are showing that afternoon, and lets Scout ride in one of the kennels and helps me load up my gear.

He drops me off at the show grounds and wishes us luck. I am standing there with my clothes, my tub of brushes, and my dog. I had left my grooming stand and crate with Lara in the car, bringing only the bare neccessities. Now I am wondering how the heck I am going to do this. The dog can't come in the bathroom when I change. It is going to be a real pain to try to show groom him on the concrete floor.

So I make another miracle happen. I walk right up to some other Aussie owners, ones I gave the eye of the competition to the day before, and introduced myself. I am not above dropping my breeder's name to help these people place who I am. I explain the situation, and they happily allow me use of an empty crate, their grooming stand, and let me in the circle of four women there, all preparing their dogs to compete against mine, but with a spirit of goodwill.

We all walk down to the ring together, dressed in our "seventies business casual", as Lara describes our show outfits. The one who made the most friendly overtures, Kay, gave us some pointers on how to to the "L" pattern the judge was doing that day, an unusual pattern for shows. We all practice our turns and hand switches as Lara finally shows up, right about time for Scout to go in.

We get a yellow ribbon this day, third in the class of four. I walk out pretty disappointed that I paid all this money to come spend the weekend here and couldn't even make it out of my class.

I had just decided that perhaps Scout and I should turn away from conformation in favor of agility, something he might be better at, when a woman stops me out of the blue.

"Your dog should have won that class," she says, and when I start to sadly agree with the judge's decision, she says it again. "No, really, he should have won that class."

And right there, it starts up again, the random intermitten reinforcement that is just enough to keep me going, four years into it with this dog who just can't "finish", who earns just enough points to make me come back for more, but more often than not, leaves me wanting.

Maybe we'll sign up for intermediate agility. Maybe we'll finally take his CGC test, or turn our heads to obedience instead. Maybe I will get a handler for him for conformation, someone who can get the major wins that I will never be able to get. I'll still keep scanning the upcoming shows for something that might turn our luck around.

And in the end, it always comes down to a crapshoot anyway. The dog that won the class Saturday was fourth, behind Scout today. Another day, another judge, and by some miracle, maybe some more purple ribbons to come.

But meanwhile? Meanwhile, I am just going to love him, and accept us as a team, for better or worse. Above everything he is and could be, he is a well-loved family pet. That is something that, win or lose, no matter how many ribbons he has or will never earn, will never change.

A DEEPER LOOK

CANTON AND SURROUNDING AREAS

6:15 pm Friday night

"How soon can you leave?"

"My bags are packed and I'm just waiting on you."

"On my way"

7:00 pm

Stuck in traffic in Conroe

Highway lane closures, construction

We stop at an urban micro geocache,

Tucked away near the place that water flows

A camo nano, with three DNFs on last logs

But I make quick work of it

Looking under the surface of things

To find the "something different"

"You're getting pretty good at this!"

Today, at least

8:00 pm

We finally get to Centerville, and food

Whataburger never tastes so good

And we settle into deep conversations

About life, women, love, our selves, our men

People we used to know

As she and I went to the same high school

Hung out with peripheral friends

We put life up to the microscope

As we cruise down life's highway

10:30 pm

Finally arrive at the Super Eight

So tired but stay up late

Talking and watching hotel TV

Get up in the early morning

And head to dog show

At First Monday Trade Days grounds

Scout tries, but it's not enough

This day he takes second out of four in his class,

"Open Blue, Dog"

Funny things you only hear at the dog show,

Snippets of conversation that make sense somehow

Like "Do you want to do that open bitch?"

Or "Oh, we're thirty minutes past Carol"

After the dog show, it's bison burgers from the Dairy Palace

And refreshing back at the hotel

Before heading out east to Tyler State Park

There's a Story in Every Moment...

The trick is in the telling....

About every three days or so, my fingers begin to twitch with impatience. They want the keyboard, to feel the pressure of the keys pressed down, to feel the words flow out. They want to tell all the stories that lie within my heart.

Last week, I had to ignore the twitches. At work, every moment was busy with preparing for a presentation that meant a lot to me. I could go into the latest in the square dance between me, the behaviorist, the fat cats, and the corporate suits, but I am not really sure who won this round and things have changed a little. One of the fat cats is gone, and this time there were more corporate suits, but I feel like I didn't really get to hear their impressions and one of them could have access to this little bloggy, so I will just stop here. It was really just more of the same - that I need to do more, but am limited by fat cat management and lack of a staff, and that my data must absolutely go to press and we are working on it. The corporate suits this time seemed genuinely behind promoting my work and were discussing the best platform for me to present seminars on my data subject matter for conferences next year after my paper gets published. I am happy about that because I feel like at least they take me seriously, as opposed to the fat cats that block me at every turn. I do think my data has the opportunity to make the world a better place for animals, so I would love the chance to get it out into the world.

At home, the twinges were dampened by a little boy who is having an Elmo freakout. Any time he saw me near the computer, he wanted to sit on my lap and watch Elmo videos. We watched the "Elmo Potty Time" video on Youtube soooo many times in the past week and he never stops laughing at it. He also figured out how to crawl out of his crib and our nights are interrupted by constant chasing and putting back in place of renegade toddler, who then cries "ELMO! ELMO!" from the confines of his crib.

Meanwhile, back at the "farm", I am having a Mason-Pearson meltdown. I am showing the dog this weekend for the first time in at least half a year, and somehow during that time managed to lose my fancy-schmancy dog brush that I absolutely must have to whip his coat into shape with my fancy-schmancy doggy blow dryer. I have just a few days to find the brush and all the assorted show things and mentally prepare for the weekend.

I am taking a girlfriend with me out of town to the dog show, for some serious girl talk and creative endeavours. I am hoping our time will involve some hiking, some geocaching, and some nature exploration, as well as some writing. What I foresee is a hike in Tyler State Park to a beautiful location where we can sit down with our journals and just free our minds and relax....

But not too much relaxing. I have come to realize that my dog shows better when I am nervous, so I am going to try to keep the nerves intact in order to energize him in the ring.

Visualize purple ribbons for me...please!

Journey of the Heart

This weekend I had a dog show scheduled in San Marcos. Our family was looking forward to having this adventure together, a post-Valentines celebration weekend in a great little town. My husband's job suddenly required that he go out of town for the same weekend, and my oldest son had been invited to a birthday party he didn't want to miss. My mother agreed to take the oldest for the weekend, and I was on my own with the youngest, who is in his "terrible twos" phase (he has recently acquired a spitting habit).
Only I could not show the dog and monitor the youngest. I didn't want to drop out of the show (and lose the entry fees) because there was someone who wanted to look at my dog as a prospective mate for her female. The people who bred my dog Scout are like family to me. They offered to show him for me, but I would still need to do the grooming beforehand. I asked my friend Lara to come with me and be my baby wrangler.

Friday evening I was frantically preparing to leave: bathing and blowing out the dog, bathing the baby, bathing myself, packing three days worth of clothes and dog food, diapers and sippy cups. I hauled the dog kennel, grooming stand, misc equipment, clothing, diaper bag, bag of toys, cooler for youngests antibiotic and liquid refreshments, and geocaching bag out to the car, dropped off the oldest dog at Grandma's and checked with oldest kid, who had gone home sick from school with Grandma and was still not eating and feeling puny. He was watching movies and laying on the couch. Scout was embarrasingly wild and the toddler was trying to get into cabinets. We loaded back up, Scout, the baby, and I, and headed off to pick up Lara.

Once on the way, we started discussing dinner plans and there was a stop along the way for some fast food. It was dark and a light rain was falling. The young child, K, was fussy at first, but eventually fell to sleep in the drizzle of the rain on the roof and the steady lulls and pitches of a good conversation. We talked of everything under the moon. She told stories of her film industry, I told her stories of my past, including my time in the San Marcos area. I was taking her on a journey to a place I used to live, a piece of my history, only it was so ancient history by now that the details are faint.

I lived in that area of the world when I was a dozen years younger and working as a horse wrangler at a camp about seventeen miles from San Marcos. We came into "town" occasionally, mostly to eat at this great mexican joint by campus. That restaurant is no more, for which I was disappointed, but we did go to Los Cucos on Saturday so it was all good. We also briefly checked out the Outlet mall, mostly so I could run in and get some new shoes for K and I. It was raining lightly all day and was miserable weather to do some hard core geocaching, but we did managed to get a lot accomplished in that area nonetheless.

The best cache we did all day was a virtual, "grandfathered" in (Geocaching.com does not allow virtual caches as new listings anymore, and also does not allow commercial caches, in which you have to pay a fee to get to the cache, and this was both), in which you had to ride out on a glass-bottomed boat in AquaArena Center and answer a question when you got to the coordinates: which spring were you over when you reached this location? The boats took you over several natural springs formed by the Balcones Fault, and we got a great geography lesson while there.

In the later afternoon, we began the drive up to the Devils Backbone, the area that the camp was located at. We were doing some caching along the way. The highlights of our journey were as follows:

GCY8EF Blown Glass

This was a microcache outside of the Wimberley Glass Works building. Inside they hosted free glass blowing demonstrations all day, and we went inside to check it out. They were making a vase when we were there, and it was awe inspiring to watch them work.

GCT71J

Backbone Break

This small cache was located just to the side of the lookout point where we used to do firewatch for the camp. The lookout gives a great view of the Devils Backbone (zipcode 78666) ridge formations out here in the hill country, and has sentimental memories attached to it for me.

GCEF CenTex Prime

Wow! A "grandfather" cache! This one was hidden in 12/00 - check out the low GC #. This might be one of the 50 oldest active caches, not sure, but it is the oldest one I have found. It was a classic cache hidden in the classic style, and was in a great area, but still a 1/1 (diffculty/terrain). It was a park and grab, but no one would ever guess it was there.

Right after finding CenTex Prime, we got back on the road and I realized we were at the gate of the old camp, not 500 feet from the cache. We stopped in the driveway to turn around and I was tempted to go in and find the man who lived there, who had been my boss that summer working with the horses. I wasn't sure if it was the right thing to do. So much time had passed. So we went on, turning around for a few miles and heading towards this one:

GC12BHB Out of Sight, Out of Mind

This cache was in an old Confederate soldier cemetary, and we spent quite a bit of time here checking out the history. It was so peaceful and the weather was just right. Scout and K enjoyed running around in the fenced yard, and we were digging the moment, Lara and I.

After this cache, we still had time and daylight, and we were in the mood for more, so I drive back west again, passing the gates of the camp for the second time. This time a truck was pulling into the drive, and I felt like they slowed ever slightly and I wondered if it was the ranger, and if he recognized me.

As we drove, we passed by the western edge of the camp and all of a sudden I could see myself there. It was at that moment that I realized that this was not a trip out to a place where I used to live, this was a trip to a place where I fell in love...with my horse. That summer was a magic summer of forming a bond with a living animal that I could not leave behind. Most of my friends are aware of the story of how I earned my horse while I was there, how he was a horse that could not be tamed, had been living there for two years unable to be ridden by anyone, but how I developed a bond with him and he became "my horse". As we drove past the pinion and sage of the back part of the trails, I thought of the picture I took from in the saddle, the view from the ride, with his neck and ears out in front and the hill country all around, and how I felt I wanted to live there forever. At the end of the summer, I offered the ranger about half of what I had made working there, delibrately mentioning it in front of the councilmen who made these kind of decisions and knowing it was more than the horse had been bought for. Later he told me privately that he wanted to sell him to his brother, who wanted to make him into a roping horse. So I seduced his brother at the end of the summer, had a wild affair with him out there, even met up with him once after the summer ended there at the lookout point, until he willingly agreed to drop his desire for the horse, and after several months of waiting for a swamp fever quarantine to be lifted, the ranger had driven that horse to me in College Station, in return for the money I had offered for him originally.

That time in my life was a time of "gain", a time of acheiving a dream I had always had, the dream of owning my own horse. Bullseye was a part of my life for five years, and we grew together and moved together, from College Station to Colorado, to Northern California to Oregon. I sold him when I was in Oregon, during a time when our relationship had become strained, and I have grieved for him all seven years since then, and our story, which had been this beautiful story of the love between a young woman and the horse of her dreams, had become a story of loss.

I wasn't prepared to face the memories of when we fell in love, and suddenly here it was, the place, the emotions, the memories swirling through my heart as I pointed the car past and on to Fisher, for yet another cemetary cache. I tried not to think about it anymore, but I realized that this loss was perhaps one of the reasons I didn't want to stop in to talk to the ranger. For years, I thought I could never forget that magical summer, because I had this living, breathing reminder of it for always, but now, so many years later, it would just be a sad story of how we have to let go of our dreams, let go of the things we love sometimes in order to move ahead.

On our way back from that area, the rain had stopped and the sun was coming out to say hello before falling for the evening, and we saw the most incredible rainbow. It stretched the entire length of sky and as we came towards it, the road seemed to be taking us directly to its end. We had been silent in our thoughts, listening to Pink Floyd, but we had a momentary lapse of silence when I mentioned that we just might be headed straight towards that pot of gold. Lara agreed that this road would in fact end directly at the gold under that rainbow.

At one point, I was headed straight for the rainbow and looked out my window with slight trepidation at the way the road went straight down in front of me, but I saw ahead that the road would come back up. That is the way I will forever remember that drive now - the mountains and valleys of the hill country road, the ups and downs, and how I thought that was just how life was - when you see the yourself coming down a hill, that just means there is a road taking you back up on the other side, that coming down only means you are coming back up. I talked this over with Lara and she completely saw what I was talking about, but maybe it is because we are both bipolar and our lives are ruled by the mountains and valleys anyway that she was able to understand why that road seemed metaphorical.

On our drive, we had passed by Riley's on the Backbone hamburger joint several times, another place we used to hang out at a lot when I lved there. It was close, cheap, and the burgers were great, and sometimes if you were lucky you could get a cold beer, too. I had longed to take stop at Riley's for old times sake, but it had changed. The back patio was covered in glass, and it looked like it was under construction or not open. After we passed Riley's for the third time and still stuck by our decision not to go in, we saw another place, a big Tex-Mex place, two stories high and decorated with lights. It looked like a great, fun place to have a meal, but the baby was quietly sleeping and we didn't want to wake him to go inside.

By the time we made it back to our hotel that night, we were exhausted and dirty from the dog show and caching and could not wait to veg out and get cleaned off. However, when we got to the hotel, we realized we were missing Lara's purse! Last I had seen it, she had set it down at the Confederate soldier graveyard! We had to make the drive back up there and get out, in the dark, and go hunt her purse in the spooky graveyard.

The next day we didn't find any caches, although the weather was great. A professional handler had offered to show my dog for free, and since he was showing under a judge who has mentioned in the past she likes him, I really thought it was his day. Unfortunately, he got another red ribbon in his class, the fourth one in the past four shows he has been to, effectively knocking him out of advancing to the next round and eliminating any chance at points.

By the time we left San Marcos, we were done with the town and everything in it. We did some light caching on the way home, bringing the weekend total up to sixteen, which is what I needed to be able to move ahead in the standings. We had a great time on the road home, talking of everything under the sun, and I was so glad I had her along to share this time with me.

It was bitterweet to walk away from that place without closing the door on the memories, without experiencing a big win to make it worth the money and time we invested with the dog, without stopping in at Riley's on the Backbone hamburger joint while we were there, but I also had a great time checking out the town with Lara and K, and I have new memories now for the town to take away some of the pain from the old ones, the ones that were so good that it hurts to have to let them go. It made me think of Riley's, and how now the camp staff probably hangs out at the swanky Mexican place instead. Sometimes things change inside us, like they do in the areas we remember, and although those places were good, sometimes they get replaced with something even better. Sometimes the heart has to have walls taken out to allow for more light to come in. We can be sad for the way it used to be, but the changes allow for something even better to take root.

Scout and I at our second big win lately. This was Point #2 of the 3 he has earned so far, a fifth of the way to his championship. The thrill of victory has proved to be a powerful motivator and has encouraged us on our quest.