Born to Bark (27 page)

Flint loved to sniff around as we walked. He seldom managed to catch anything on campus, although he occasionally flushed out a rabbit or rat, or got to dash madly after a squirrel. At least once, he did startle a large rat from cover. It made a wrong turn in its attempt to escape and Flint caught and dispatched it in his efficient terrier style. Mostly, however, he simply got to chase his prey out to the end of the long leash, at which point he could not actually make contact with his target. Nonetheless, just finding and pursuing vermin seemed to give him pleasure. Near the empty
building, a cluster of students was standing or sitting, ready to watch the initial phase when the walls and roof would be brought down—the most exciting part. As we got closer to the structure, Flint got excited. These old buildings had been intended to be used only for a short time, so they had only minimal foundations and no basements, with the floors raised 2 or 3 feet off the ground. An open lattice of wood slats had once surrounded the crawl space, but over the years pieces of lathe had broken or rotted out leaving large holes that allowed access to the area under the floor. I assumed that
Flint must have caught the scent of some rodent hiding in the crawl space and wanted to go after it.

The situation seemed safe, so I moved near one of the larger holes in the understructure and let him run ahead on the lead. He raced inside with a happy bark. Some of the students wandered closer to see what I was doing.

“He’s a terrier,” I explained. “He thinks that there is something in there to hunt. Maybe he’ll catch a mouse or rat. I have him on this long leash so that he won’t get lost under there.”

“Really?” asked one of a knot of young coeds standing off to the side, and she bent down to try to look through the hole that Flint had disappeared into.

I could feel an occasional tug, so I knew that Flint was near the end of the line. Then there was a quick slackening and tightening causing several jerks. He’s actually caught something, I thought. I assumed that the tugs on the leash were from Flint grabbing some rodent and giving it the shake of death. Shortly I would know for sure, since Flint was bound to come out and present me with his prize.

The leash went slack and a few moments later Flint emerged from the shadowy subfloor area. Sure enough, he was carrying a gray furry object, which hung limply from his mouth. He was carrying it by the scruff of its neck, its tail dragging on the ground. When the sunshine hit him, I saw to my horror that he was carrying the body of a young kitten that couldn’t have been more than about 6 weeks old.

My heart sank. One of the feral cats must have chosen to have her litter under this building. But unfortunately, my hunter-killer terrier had discovered them, and now in a moment or two, when we would be standing surrounded by dozens of student witnesses, my dog would prove to the world that he was a murderer of helpless, cute little kittens. There was a gasp from the group surrounding us when they realized what my dog was carrying.

Flint dropped the limp carcass and gave a bark that seemed a request for praise for his hunting skill. As I bent over the kitten’s body, it suddenly twitched and rolled to its feet. Blinking
at the bright sunshine, the kitten scanned the people surrounding it, then looked down and, seeing the dust and dirt that had accumulated on her fur from Flint dragging it around, began to clean itself. The assembled students oohed and ahhed.

When I looked up to see what Flint was doing, he was gone. The leash disappeared through the hole, so he was back under the building. A few moments later he emerged again, carrying an orange-and-white striped kitten that he dropped next to its littermate, also alive and unharmed.

I barely caught a glimpse of Flint’s carrot-shaped tail, which was quivering with excitement, before he ducked yet a third time back into the gloom. Two or three minutes later he reemerged with a black-and-white kitten that was squirming a bit, as if annoyed by the indignity of being rescued by a dog. Once Flint deposited it next to its brother and sister, it began to make little mewling sounds. Flint then circled the group, as if to assure himself that all were present, but made no move to go back under the building.

Kneeling next to this collection of felines, I wondered, “What do I do next?”

I took a chance, and announced, “Well, gang, it looks like my dog has saved the lives of these three little guys. In an hour the bulldozers would have brought this whole building down on them. Now we have a problem. These kittens are going to need a home or I’ll have to take them to a shelter.”

I had barely stopped for a breath when one young woman with a Shirley Temple mop of blond hair rushed forward and asked, “You mean that we can take them?”

“I don’t believe that they belong to anyone, and they certainly can’t survive on their own. So if you want one of these kittens, feel free to take it home with you.”

The girl bent over the trio of kittens and lifted the black-and-white one up to her face. It stretched its paws out and touched her nose. “I’m going to call you Patches,” she announced, and
then tucked the little animal into the crook of her arm and disappeared into the crowd.

A moment later another girl in a faded denim jacket picked up the little gray cat. “Hello, Shadow,” she said to the cat, as she carried it away. “That’s your new name.”

A slim Chinese girl lowered herself to her knees next to the remaining orange-and-white kitten, which immediately got up and approached her. “May I have him?” she asked in a soft, tentative voice.

I nodded and she looked back at the kitten, gazed into its eyes, and said gently, “I will call you
Lao Hu
, which means ‘tiger’ in Chinese, if that is acceptable to you.” The little cat rubbed against her outstretched hand as if to say that he was happy with his new name. She carefully lifted the kitten and hugged it to her chest. She looked at me and smiled, and said, “Thank you.” Then she turned and looked at Flint and said in a quiet and respectful voice, “And thank you. If you were mine I would call you
Hui Shih
, which means ‘gray lion,’ because you are brave and noble and benevolen
t like the Celestial Lion.”

Two Chinese girls who had been standing close to her overheard this and both shouted “Yes” and clapped their hands. The girl on her knees clutched the kitten tightly, gave a little bow with her head, then rose and joined the other two girls. The small group disappeared as they passed through the crowd of spectators.

About a half hour later the engine of a yellow-and-black bulldozer started. A few minutes after, the whole side of the building next to the place where Flint had emerged with the kittens collapsed. I looked at my little dog and marveled. Even though he was genetically programmed to hunt and kill small furry things, today he had gently retrieved three young cats and presented them to me as if he intended for me to take care of them. I looked at the growing pile of rubble that was once a
building and observed, “You saved three lives today, my puppy. You are a hero!”

“You can just call me the most honorable and respected Hui Shih,”
said a voice that I would never again equate with the Cowardly Lion.

That night I told Joannie about Flint’s heroic deeds and mentioned that for a moment I had considered taking the orange-and-white cat home as a gift to her.

Joan looked directly at Flint, made eye contact, and announced, “Hero or not, you’re lucky that Stan didn’t bring that cat home. That would have put you out of business. Cats not only hunt and kill mice, they eat them. That means no dead bodies to clean up and no warm, dead carcasses left on a person’s chest!”

“But for now you still have the services and protection of the revered and esteemed Hui Shih,”
said the new voice of my lion dog.

In late September, I was standing near the entrance to a dog show ring, Flint next to my left side, twirling around in circles to watch the other dogs passing behind and in front of him. He always spins in a clockwise direction, so every few minutes I had to loosen the leash to let it unwind so that it didn’t cut off the circulation to my hand.

Several people from the Vancouver Dog Obedience Club were sitting next to the ringside watching the competitors in the novice class. Both Barbaras were there, as were Shirley and Emma, all sitting on folding lawn chairs. Shirley, Joannie’s longtime friend, had convinced Joan to come to view Flint’s first obedience competition and was explaining to her what was going on. A woman was starting her competition trial with her Welsh corgi, and I was wondering why I was there about to display to the world and my wife the degree of control—or, I suspect, lack of control—that I had over my li
ttle Cairn terrier.

I was excited to share the legacy of Blanche Saunders, who had helped establish the sport of dog obedience trials in the 1930s. The exercises demonstrated what dogs could do beyond their usual jobs of hunting, herding, or guarding. The dogs that
she showed were merely “companion dogs,” and the first title that a dog can earn is the CD, which stands for Companion Dog.

Modern obedience competitions begin with
novice class
exercises that are designed to demonstrate that the dog is under control and has good manners. More advanced obedience degrees depend upon the owner’s ability to train the dog to do more complex tasks, some of which may look more like “tricks,” including fetching a thrown dumbbell, jumping different obstacles, obeying commands instantaneously whether the command is spoken or given by hand signal, and using his scenting abilities to find items that have been touched by his owner when put with other items.

When casually observing dogs performing, you may have the sense that most of the dogs are working well and virtually all of them are better controlled than a typical pet. But the standards in competition are much more rigorous than those that a typical pet owner would require of his dog.

Each time a dog enters the ring it is assigned a perfect score of 200 points. From then on, the dog can only lose points, which he does if any of his exercises is less than perfect. Judges deduct points for dogs that drift out of the perfect heeling position (by the handler’s left leg) by lagging behind or forging a few steps in front as their handler moves around the obedience ring. Dogs lose points when they sit too slowly or not at all. Any dog that moves from the position that it has been commanded to hold, or even fidgets too much, whether standing, sitting, or lying dow
n, loses points. A dog that walks away when ordered to stay or refuses to perform a task when commanded to do so loses all the points for that exercise. Any single exercise with a zero score disqualifies the dog for that trial. In order to qualify, you have to get a score of 170 or higher and you have to qualify three times, under different judges, to earn a title. Each qualifying score is referred to as a “leg,” so a dog with an obedience title must have three legs.

Actually the “team” of dog and handler is being evaluated, which means that the handler can also cause points to be deducted. Judges deduct points for handlers who use the leash to physically guide the dog, such as when they keep the pressure too tight or tug at the dog. They lose points or fail exercises if the handler talks to the dog during an exercise (even to give a word of praise) or if the handler gives two or more commands for a single exercise. Some judges can be quite picky about this. One competitor’s team was failed simply because the handler unconsciously nodded her head
at the same time that she commanded “Come!” When asked about this, the judge simply said that the head nod “could have been an additional signal that the dog was trained to respond to.”

In many ways the judging of a dog’s performance is much like the judging of Olympic and high-level figure skating. According to kennel club rules,
“The judge must carry a mental picture of the theoretically perfect performance in each exercise and score each dog and handler against this visualized standard which shall combine the utmost in willingness, enjoyment and precision on the part of the dog, and naturalness, gentleness, and smoothness in handling.”
That gives the judge a lot of leeway and certainly allows the judge’s preferences, biases, and expectations to creep into and influence the
scores they assign to particular teams. Among competitors, rumors abound about “good” and “bad” judges, and the prejudices that certain of the “bad” judges are believed to have. I had been warned away from competing under one particular obedience judge, for example, because I was told that he trained retrievers and “only retrievers and sporting dogs seem to get good scores in his ring.”

This belief in judges’ unfairness probably accounted for one particular joke around the dog show circuit. It began with the idea that God was looking for some entertainment and decided that having a dog obedience show might be fun. Since nearly
all dogs go to heaven, the best competitors of all time could be found in paradise and God wanted to have them compete against each other in the same trial. So God turned to one of the archangels and told him to arrange it. A short time later Satan gets a phone call from that angel.