by Emma
Bracken while she was talking to us. At that point she had
my greatest sympathy, for i knew what it was like to be in the
limelight and to remember to smile at everyone and i hope
that when i reach her age i shall have as much energy and
enthusiasm as she has. I suddenly felt empty-handed and
realized that i hadn't got Bracken's lead in my hand and
reached across to take it from Deirdre. i didn't realize that
she had it tightly wrapped around the wrist of the hand that
was holding a full glass of champagne. Without thinking, I
gave a little tug on the lead. At which point Deirdre threw her
glass of champagne all over Barbara! i wasn't sure whether
to laugh or to disappear into the crowds, but i should have
known that nothing daunts her. She laughed with us and,
always finding the right remark for the right occasion, told us
she felt she'd just been launched.
i then went to seek out Dougal and Kalli, for i wanted to
meet those very special dogs in person. Kalli was the typical
black-and-brown mongrel dog you see roaming the streets of
our cities any day but she'd had the good fortune to find the
right people and the right vocation in life. i had to take my
turn along with many others to have a cuddle of the brave
little Dougal. Bracken, who'd never met a Pekinese before,
wasn't quite sure what to make of him, especially when i
picked Dougal up and held him in my arms. He sat with a
perplexed expression on his face, head cocked to one side
with that 'protection' look in his eyes. Whenever i am
approached by another dog or i go up to make a fuss of
someone else's dog, Bracken is always there, standing over
me like a big, brown guard, in case anything goes wrong.
'He's a dog, Bracken,' i explained, kneeling on the floor so
that Dougal and Bracken were on the same level. Bracken
was intrigued. He nuzzled through his fur, found his ears
and his nose, gave his face a friendly lick and accepted him
for what he was.
i felt a very deep link with Kalli and Dougal's owners - a
feeling i knew well, of owning a dog who was very, ;cry
special.
ii6
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
NINETEEN EIGHTY-ONE did have its good days, but they
were completely blacked out for me by the horror that i had
to face between May and November. It began with Shadow.
We'd been working so well together and i had been looking
foward all winter to the start of'the obedience show season in
March. As early as the beginning of February i had begun to
plan our first show, even down to what i was going to wear
and what sort of sandwiches we'd take with us for the day. i
knew that after all my hard work Shadow was good enough,
and i felt sure that we should get a place.
To train a dog for competition obedience is a daily
dedication. i had learnt a lot over the last few months, both
from people who train dogs and Shadow herself. Twice a day
we would go out for our training but I'd soon realized that it
was pointless doing this in a regimented fashion. Constant
repetition would only bore Shadow, and yet constant
repetition is needed for a dog to understand exactly what's
required of her in each excerise. So it had to be a mixture of
work and play. Each exercise had to be made into a game so
that Shadow learnt something without realizing she was
working. just like children, dogs learn much quicker if it's
fu n.
Our first show was held at the Bingley Halls, Stafrord.
Shadow was entered in the two lowest classes - beginner and
novice. Both the beginner and novice classes have the same
pattern of work, the only difference being that the retrieve
article in beginner's can be anything, in novice it must be a
dumb-bell. There was the same set heel work pattern for
each competl tor, with right, left and about turns, and halts,
where Shadow had to sit absolutely, straight or she'd lose half
a point. She would also lose points if she walked wide. She
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had to keep by my left leg in a consistent position. The heel
work was first done on the lead and then off the lead, which
should, of course, make no difference to a correctly trained
dog. The dog is expected to do a recall off the lead: the dog is
left sitting at one side of the ring, the handler walks to the
opposite end, turns to face her dog and only calls the dog
when commanded by the steward. The dog must come
to her handler at a reasonable pace - some judges will dock
for slow returns on recalls - and then sit in front of the
handler exactly in the middle of the handler's two feet. An
off-centre present or a crooked sit will lose another half a
mark. The dog must then return to the heel position by either
going right round the handler's back, or turning and
sitting at the left hand side. Another half a point is lost if the
sit at the heel position isn't absolutely straight.
Retrieve for a beginner handler is one of the hardest
exercises to teach a dog. It takes a lot of time and patience to
get the required precision. The handler begins the exercise,
as always, with the dog sitting on the left, and throws out the
retrieve article. The dog must sit and wait until told by the
handler to retrieve. If the dog knocks the article with her
paws or throws it about at all in her mouth, she will be docked
points. So she must do a very clean pick-up, immediately
returning to the handler to do a straight sit in front again,
hold the article until the handler takes it and then return
again to the heel position.
The stays are done with all the dogs that are entered in the
class together, usually in a separate ring. The dogs in
beginner and novice are left in a one minute sit and then a
two minute down, and the handlers are only required to move
a few yards away from the dog. I t is always a nice feelingjust
before going in the ring because everyone starts with the
maximum amount of points - a hundred for novice and
beginner's. For each fault points are knocked off so, naturally,
it's the person with the highest number ofpoints who wins the
day.
The competition at dog shows nowadays is extremely
fierce. There are as many as sixty dogs in each class, so a
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judge takes from around ten o'clock in the morning until five
or six o'clock at night to get through all the entries. With
such strong competition for the places, it's often only half a
mark lost that can deny you that first place, so you can
imagine how much effort and work and enthusiasm must go
into the training of your dog to get absolute precision. The
classes start with beginners, then go on to novices, A, B and
C. Once in A, the dogs are expected to do more complicated
exercises! You are not allowed to talk to your dog except to
give the commands, and any extra command will be docked
; from your marks. In the higher classes dogs are expected to
do stays while the handlers go out of sight and to discriminate
between scent - at firstjust their owner's scent and then
on to someone else's scent. The dogs must work up and down
a line of, say, white cloths to scent the correct article. This is
something that we humans know nothing about. We can
only teach our dogs how to scent discriminate by sight and
often when they pick up the wrong cloth we don't know why.
They could be air scenting - scent carries on the slightest
breeze and scent from one cloth can be blown over to
another. One of the most difficult exercises to teach your
dog, required for the higher classes, is the send-away. The
dog must leave the handler's side and go to a given point that
thejudge has marked out in the ring and lie down until called
back to the handler.
But for the time being, i wasjust having a try at the lowest
classes. As i stood outside the beginners' ring with Shadow
sitting at my feet, watching the other competitors, i had
never felt so nervous in my life. Television cameras and
audiences of six hundred people had never made me so
scared as the thought of going into that ring did. i tried not
to be nervous for Shadow's sake, for I'm sure emotions pass
from owner to dog like radio waves. But, like all good dogs,
Shadow knew i was nervous and so put on a very calm front
to help me. The steward called my number and i stepped
uncertainly into the ring. He didn't seem to notice my
shaking hands and trembling legs as he gave me the familiar
instructions.
iig
'You can talk to your dog as much as you like but you
mustn't touch her. Remember to have a loose lead. You will
be penalized if your lead is tight at any time during the
exercise. Are you ready?'
I could hardly say yes, my nerves were so bad. i tried
desperately to remember all the advice I'd been given:
breathe deeply, look straight in front of you, forget about the
judge and the steward.
'Dog and handler forward!' the steward commanded.
'Shadow, heel!' i walked round the ring like a jelly,
nervous and frightened that i was going to make a mess of it,
with little Shadow doing her very best to keep up with my
shaky legs and wobbly strides. i was so relieved when we'd
done every part of our exercise that i nearly collapsed on the
floor with relief.
'That was a nice round,' thejudge said. i stared at him,
open mouthed. 'You're a bit nervous though, aren't you?
You'll have to get over those nerves and your dog will work a
lot better. Anyway, you only lost two-and-a-half points.
That's very good.'
'Thank you,' i managed to say as i danced out of the ring
with Shadow bouncing after me with absolute delight.
Two-and-a-half points lost out of one hundred was the best i
could ever have hoped for and it gave us reserve place in our
class.
i soon realized that before i could go much further up the
classes i had to overcome my handicap of sight, or lack of it.
However well i trained my dog it was pointless if i was going
to walk round the ring in the wrong direction. I certainly
wasn't going to give up - never yet had i let my lack of sight
beat me, and it wasn't going to stop me showing my dogs. So
i had to think of a way round the problem. As soon as i
reached any show venue i headed straight for the rings that i
would be competing in and sized them up. I walked round
and round the outside 6f them, placing everything i could
see in my mind. For example, there might be a tall tree to the
left-hand corner of the ring and a yellow car parked on the
right. i would then wait and watch the first one or two
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competitors to see the pattern of the heel work, so i could get
it quite clear in my mind that we were doing a right turn
towards the yellow car and an about turn towards the big
tree. i ex,en admit to going to extreme lengths at some shows,
where if i couldn't find any markers whatsoc-x,er, I'd have
someone stand outside the ring, a little way, away, and ask
them not to move so that i could pin-point them once in the
ring and get my bearings from them. It doesn't always work,
but 98 per cent of the time I'm going in roughly the right
direction - and if it takes me for the rest of my life, i will
master the sport of dog obedience shows.
At our next show, Shadow won first in her beginner class
and got a third in the next class. i began to have more
confidence in myself and so was able to help her a lot more in
the ring. Those first two months of the show season were so
enjoyable to both of us. Shadow was placed at almost every
show, and the more we worked together, the more the bond
of love between us scaled itself. Little did i know how soon it
was to end.
Towards the middle of May i noticed that Shadow was
limping on her front left leg. For a day or two i thought
perhaps she'd strained it, or one of the dogs had pushed her
over. When i watched the dogs playing in the park it
sometimes horrified me the way they treated each other,
racing around at about thirty miles-an-hour, knocking
straight into one another. i couldn i t find anything wrong
with Shadow's paw, or her leg, but after three or four days
she was still limping, so i made an appointment to take her
to the vet. He was as much at a loss to find anything amiss as
i was, and suggested that she could have sprained it and told
me to rest her. If there was no improvement i should bring
her back in a fortnight. There was no improvement so i took
her back. This time i came away with a packet of pills, and
instructions to return with her if there was no improvement
in a week. i was back at the vet's again a week later. All i
remember of that summer is taking Shadow backwards and
forwards to the vet. Our fourth visit was for an X-ray.
Maybe there was something wrong with her shoulder that
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would show up. But nothing was revealed on the X-ray and
everyone at the surgery was baffled.
Every morning, as i descended the stairs to let the dogs
out, i prayed that Shadow's limp would have miraculously
disappeared overnight. But although the vet told me he
could find nothing wrong with her paw the limp became
worse and often Shadow cried out with pain when she lay
down or stood up. Back i went to the vet, insisting that this
time he do something. More painkillers were prescribed and
more X-rays. Poor Shadow was left, yet again, at the vet's
surgery for an X-ray and when i called to collect her in the
evening, i was met by a pleased grin.
'I've found it!' the vet announced triumphantly. 'She's
broken her toe. Often a dog can break a toe, but they usually
mend without any trouble at all. Unless, of course, it's a
severe break and the dog hasn't been rest
ed,' he explained.
i was personally convinced that Shadow's foot had
nothing to do with the agony that she was going through and
i told him so, but he insisted that we at least try bandaging
her paw and seeing what happened. It was only two days
later that i was back, having been told not to return for a
fortnight, but the pain was still there. i had never had to deal
with a dog in pain before. It was heartbreaking and i felt
totally helpless. i faced the vet with determination. 'You
have got to do something. It definitely isn't her paw.'
For a moment, i thought he was going to send me home
with yet another packet of painkillers and the pain and
distress that Shadow was suffering gave me the resolve to tell
my vet that he was wrong. 'It's her shoulder that's causing
the trouble, not her paw.'
After a moment's hesitation, he suggested yet another Xray
on her shoulder. i wanted to be angry with him and ask
him if all his solutions to every problem were X-rays and
painkillers, but all i felt was utter despair. So, yet again, i left
the surgery without Shadow, with the familiar instruction to
pick her up at four o'clock.
At a quarter-to-four i pushed the heavy surgery door
open, and walked into the reception area. 'I've come to
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collect Shadow,' i announced to the receptionist. Not that i
needed to tell her. We'd got to know each other rather well
over the last few weeks.
'I'm sorry, you can't take her home, they've operated. I'll
fetch the vet. just a moment.'
Relief and foreboding swept over me simultaneously. If
they'd operated, they'd found it. Thank goodness! But what
was it? The vet grinned at me as he showed me into his
consulting room. 'We've found the trouble! There was a
lump that showed up on the inside of her shoulder blade so
we decided to operate immediately.'
'Yes ... and what did you find?' i asked anxiously.
'Well, I'm not really sure. Some of the bone there seemed
to be dead. i think perhaps she had a foreign body lodged
inside but I didn't find anything.'
Together we went through all the things that it might be.
