emma and company - Sheila Hocken

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

  i20

  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.