Black Ribbon

work with a dog on what was obviously the wrong side. The world of obedience, like the rest of the world, is designed for right-handed people. Always, the dog sits and heels at the handler’s left.
    “Praise him! He did great!” Heather said.
    “Good boy!” My words were superfluous. Rowdy had loved the A-frame. For once, he hadn’t even been very interested in food. Climbing up and down had been a self-rewarding activity.
    “Everyone had a turn?” Heather asked. “Okay, a couple of you keep on with the A-frame, and while you’re doing that, I’ll get a few people started on the tunnel. Let the Labs try the A-frame again, and the setters, and bring the other dogs over here. And what you want to do with that yellow Lab,” she told Eva, “is, you’re going to have to slow him down and build his confidence, and even if you practically have to stop him in the zones and at the top of the ramp, that’s where you praise him and that’s where you give him a treat. Forget speed. All you work on now is correct zone habits.”
    Again, zone habits. I liked the phrase. Erogenous vestments. Panamanian nuns. As I was fighting the dizziness induced by keeping Rowdy on my right—wrong—side, Heather pointed to what agility people call an open tunnel or pipe tunnel, the kind of cloth-covered wire spiral that children use, but, like all agility equipment, very sturdy. Actually, there were two open tunnels, one compressed and fastened with bungee cord to form what was hardly a tunnel at all, the other stretched to a length of eight or ten feet. We started with the hooplike compressed tunnel. Heather held each dog’s collar while the handler went around, bent down, looked through, caught the dog’s eye, and called. Then Heather released her grip on the collar, and the dog went through and ended up in the handler’s arms.
    “Hey, these guys are doing just great. Anyone want to try this?” She pointed to the stretched-out tunnel. “You know your own dog best. If he’s ready, let him give it a try, and if he’ s not, just give him a little time, and he will be. Don’t push Him.”
    “We’ll stick with this,” said the big woman. I don’t think I ever learned her name. I kept on thinking of her as Ms. Baskerville.
    “I borrowed a tunnel from a neighborhood kid,” I said.
    ‘We’ve fooled around with it.” There are limits to my willingness to brag about my dogs. In fact, the first time I’d borrowed the tunnel, while I’d been busy stretching it out and stabilizing it with cement blocks, Rowdy had gone zipping through.
    “Jacob’ll watch,” Michael said. “Let him see that after you go in, you come out again.” To me, Michael added, “He learns a lot watching other dogs.”
    Michael and the pretty Akita moved to the far end of the tunnel. Heather reached out for Rowdy’s lead. I didn’t know what breed Heather had. Probably a Border collie, incredible agility breed, fast, accurate, truly agile. Or maybe a mix. Some of the top agility dogs in the country are medium-size, zippy dogs with what mixed-breed fans like to think of as hybrid vigor. Whatever Heather had, it certainly wasn’t a malamute or any other breed with Rowdy’s power. I’m always embarrassed to tell a real dog person how to handle a dog, but only malamute people understand malamute power. I warned Heather: “Hang on!”
    Then I hurried to the opposite end of the tunnel, near where Michael and Jacob had stationed themselves. I hunkered down and peered into the semidarkness. “Let him go!” I called. “Rowdy, here! This way!” I clapped my hands and made happy noises. As Rowdy entered the tunnel, his bulk blocked the light at the far end. “Rowdy, this way! Come on, good boy!” About halfway through, he dawdled. Then he put his nose to the floor, sank down, and settled in, evidently content to take a nap in the middle of what was supposed to be an obstacle.
    While I’d been looking in the tunnel, Eva, Ginny, and the others must have decided that they were ready for a new obstacle. I sensed people around. The only voice I heard was Eva’s. “Big wimp,” she said. “Can’t get him in the water, and can’t get him out of there.”
    “Call to him!” Heather instructed.
    “Rowdy, here! Hey, let’s go! Rowdy, come on!” My whistling, calling, hand clapping, and thigh slapping finally got him to his feet. Once he arose, he picked up speed and flew out of the tunnel so fast that I had to scramble to my feet and step out