Ruffly Speaking

elevated state of enlightenment that consists of knowing nothing whatsoever about your field of greatest expertise. Leah continued to harbor the illusion that in dog training, as in all other meditative endeavors, an objective truth exists out there somewhere and that revelation is reached by way of hard work. Novice that she Was, she’d drenched herself and Kimi with the garden hose and was praying in the shade cast by the high brick Wall of the luxury grooming spa and Malamute Rescue haven temporarily known as someone else’s spite building.
    The no-force technique Leah was applying —binding —consists of using a short lead to clamp the dog to your left side in perfect heel position while you simultaneously pour on praise for the flawless heeling you’ve set the dog up to execute. Leah was making cheerful noises to hold Kimi’s attention, moving quickly enough to keep Kimi prancing happily along, murmuring heartfelt praise, and not giving Kimi a single opportunity to make a mistake. No force? No choice. I wished Bernie Brown were there to watch. As top handlers go, Bernie holds an unusually high opinion of Alaskan malamutes as competitive obedience dogs. His published view on the matter is that they make nice pets. I wonder, though, whether he understands that binding could have been designed for the breed. After all, Bernie Brown’s approach is the only one to capitalize on the universal conviction of Alaskan malamutes that since they’re smarter than everyone else, they’re absolutely always right.
    Hubris.
    Well, yes. Hubris is one of the ten most popular dog names in Cambridge. But what I had in mind was the foundation bitch, so to speak: the arrogance of mortals who imagine themselves equal to the gods, the fatal flaw that stood between Oedipus and his Elysian OTCH. That was back in the old days, of course, before Bernie Brown. I’m serious. Take Oedipus. With Bernie Brown handling, the guy wouldn’t even have seen his mother, never mind had the chance to you-know-what. And where would that have left Freud? In the absence of the name, in the absence of the event itself, would the concept have entirely eluded Freud? Does insight require the correct proper noun, which itself requires individuals to remain on their allotted continents in their assigned centuries instead of zipping around through space and time like Ralph and Doris on their pitiful whine-ridden excuse for what started as a happy family excursion, but turned into a galactic nightmare when Aaron and Hazel threw a con-joint celestial temper tantrum and, in an unprecedented moment of unanimity, refused to settle for the likes of Violet?
    But what about Violet herself?Ralph’s fault for getting lost? Doris’s fault for misreading the map? Violet doesn’t know, though. All that terror, all that suffering, and no explanation. No-fault divorce, no-fault car insurance, fine, but no-fault alien abduction? The hand of fate?
    Violet might be persuaded to buy that explanation, but only because the sole companion animal she’s had in thirty-six years is the gerbil that died. Violet does not own a dog. She does not train dogs. She knows nothing of the Brownian revolution. I am not Violet. I use Bernie Brown’s methods as they suit me and my dogs, and as I understand it, that’s exactly how he intends them to be used. I am no recent convert, I am not Leah, but I am convinced that the most effective way to train is to present no choice except the correct one, and, overall, I agree that the hand of fate is the hand of the handler, the voice of fate the handler’s, the mistakes, the blame, the fault.
    Leah has switched exercises. She’s practicing what’s called the come fore, the part of the recall that consists of having the dog position herself straight in front of the handler. With Kimi still on the twenty-one-inch lead, Leah moves forward and then calls “Kimi, come!” Simultaneously, Leah backs up, takes a seat in an invisible chair, and brings Kimi into the chute formed by her bent knees. Guaranteed perfection? Not quite. Kimi is not directly in front of Leah, but twists toward Leah’s right side, all too ready to go around to heel position. Her forepaws are not even. The left rests on the grass a good inch ahead of the right. An error! Whose fault? Leah’s. Notice her feet, the right toe an inch in front of the left. Peer into Leah’s right hand. Fastidious adolescent, she dislikes the taste of Redi-Liver and shies from the