Black Ribbon

less on command, but you can use any word or phrase you want. Pair it with the act, say it every time the dog goes, praise him, and before long, you’ve got a dog that will relieve himself before he gets into the show ring instead of right in the middle of the judging. There are other ways to prevent soiling in the ring, but if you aren’t a real dog person, you’ve probably lost your lunch already, and if you’ve managed to keep it, the other ways would bring it up. I limited myself to assuring Joy that Phyllis was acting perfectly normal. Maybe Eva cleaned up after Bingo as I was watching Phyllis or talking to Joy. Or perhaps Heather relented. I don’t know; I didn’t see.
    After that, we again broke into groups and introduced the dogs to the other obstacles. Because of his background in obedience, Rowdy had no trouble with the jumps, including the tire jump, or with the down-stay on the pause table, either. The weave poles weren’t a big hit. They’re a slalom course; the trained dog weaves smoothly left, right, left, right, bending his body to speed through. To Rowdy, the poles must have seemed like a dumb bunch of sticks. We prepared for the balance-beam dogwalk by using a narrow board so close to the ground that I couldn’t convince Rowdy to keep his feet on it.
    With Heather’s help, I sent him through the tunnel two more times. The first time, he lingered; the second time, he raced through. We ended where we’d begun, at the A-frame, which was clearly going to be one of Rowdy’s favorite obstacles. In fact, by the end of the class, I knew that Rowdy was ready to have the A-frame raised higher. I didn’t say so, of course. No one wants to sound like Eva Spitteler, who managed to get into a final dispute with the agility people by loudly announcing her intention of returning to the area, raising the heights of the obstacles, and letting Bingo run the course without what she referred to as Heather and Sara’s “interference.”
    “No one,” Sara informed her icily, “absolutely no one uses this equipment unsupervised. Got it? No one.”
    “Oh, yeah?” Eva demanded. “You’re here twenty-four hours a day?”
    “Everyone!” Sara called. “This is important.”
    When we’d gathered around her, she tactfully explained that someone had raised the question of whether the agility course was available for practice between classes. The answer, Sara said firmly, was no. We all knew about liability, didn’t we? Well, liability wasn’t the reason. The reason was the safety of the dogs. “And could everyone get here a little early tomorrow morning?” she added. “We could use a little help moving the obstacles. So get here good and early.”
    As the group broke up, I heard Eva grumble very loudly, “Good and earlier than you will! How’d one A.M. do? That early enough for you?”
    As Cam, Ginny, and I moved out of Eva’s range, Cam exclaimed, “Talk about grating! That woman makes me feel like a piece of Parmesan cheese, for God’s sake!”
    In unspoken agreement to get away from Eva as quickly as possible, we gathered up our gear and got our dogs moving, but as we were leaving the clearing to head down the little road and across the field to the obedience tent, Eva and Bingo caught up with us. Even our low-level beginning agility was decent exercise, and the temperature was rising. Besides, Eva didn’t look exactly fit. She was panting hard. Hauling Bingo around in front of us, Eva came to a halt, turned to face us, spread her feet apart, and planted herself in the road. Lifting a half-pointing finger and glaring directly at me, she said, “You’re a dog writer!”
    All I could think of were the old films of the Army-McCarthy hearings. Eva looked and sounded so amazingly like Senator Joseph McCarthy that I was almost tempted to raise my right hand and swear that I was not now and never had been a member of the Dog Writers’ Association of America. But D.W.A.A. is a wonderful organization, and I’m not the kind of disloyal member who’d tailor her conscience to fit the fashion of the times.
    “Yes,” I admitted. “I am.”
     

 
    ONCE EVA SPITTELER had decided that I was a lot more important in the fancy than I really was or ever will be, she abruptly cut the nasty remarks about Rowdy and made an ingratiating pest of herself. She loved Dog’s Life , she loved my column, she loved my articles, she loved not only everything about everything I’d ever written but everything about