Clean Run - February 2016 - 31

I REALLY NEEDED SOME KIND OF MANUAL TO UNLOCK THE
PREDICTABILITY OF UNPREDICTABILITY. A LITTLE BOOKLET AND THE
SPECIAL TOOL REQUIRED FOR ALL 50,000 WEIRD-SHAPED SCREWS.
My puppy also thought that being touched and held was a
huge waste of time at best, and panic attack inducing at worst.
The friendly veterinarian's office, all those nice, dog loving ladies in paw print scrubs with cookies for her? Satan's torture
pit. Me, her person, would like to pet her, or maybe brush her
soft fur? Everybody was going to horribly die at the hand of
the evil witch. Perhaps touching her toenails? Perhaps bite the
evil witch. Also, she thought the sound of other dogs barking
put evil spirits into otherwise banal objects around the house,
Otterpop barks, must kill the vase on the table. Fear period?
Ghostbuster? Genetic hatred of candlesticks?
Or just being a Border Collie? Clearly I hadn't gotten the
beginner's model puppy. Obsessive Googling on "puppy staring" informed me these were signs of stress or not enough
exercise. I was pretty sure I'd completely broken my
puppy already, but how? Long forest and beach
runs are my middle name. I abide Dude-like
in a hippie slacker surf town. Aloha, Mr.
Hand. How could it be that my puppy
was super stressed out all the time?
I got on the Internet and watched
my dog training hero videos. Their
high drive puppies looked less feral.
Somewhat organized. Enjoyed petting.
Damn them. Whether this was selective video editing or dog training genius,
I'll never know. But I never saw them dragging their puppies out of weird staring dazes or
freak-out panic attacks because of reaching down to give
their puppy a little pat.
I'd run some of my questions by experienced Border Collie
owners. When you're new to Border Collies, you don't have
the secret handshake yet. There's an initiation period. A common reaction when other Border Collie owners saw me with
my new puppy was a raised eyebrow, followed by, "Wow...you
got a Border Collie?" in a tone that was confidence slamming
all the way down to the sub level.
Was it all over my face? Can't train a puppy? Being generally
gloriously happy about my new puppy, I would wag and nod
and flap around and start yapping about the awesomeness of
my puppy. She can do the Spiderman trick! Best hiking pal of
the universe! But then I might bring it around to some of the
quirkier aspects of her personality, maybe in hopes of getting
a few tips.
Most other Border Collie people are more than happy to
hand out all kinds of advice about Border Collies. But when
I'd ask about the staring or the bizarre attacking of decora-

February 16 | Clean Run

tive household accessories, or the panic attacks about being
touched, some of the time the eyebrow would come back up,
the advice would stop, and they'd say something like, "Oh. My
Border Collie never did that," and start backing away.
So, not that helpful.
Then there were the people without Border Collies. They'd
see me with my puppy at an agility trial, and the resounding
chorus, warbled over and over, was "Oh, you've gone to the
dark side."
I always picture Elvira, Mistress of the Dark when I hear that.
So much more cleavage than I and a vampire mullet shag. The
towering goth gowned patron saint of all of us non-Border
Collie agility people who step out into some dark and spooky
night and get themselves one. I'd crossed over from
running cute little rescue dogs at 12", and sold
out to the glamor of the 22" division.
"No way! Team Small Dog only has
little black dogs! Team Small Dog can't
have a big dog!"
"Um, she's actually pretty small...."
Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, usually at
this point would start dragging away
her large, fluffy, tannish and white puppy
who was locking her eyeballs in on that
little piece of dirt. Or that running dog way
over there. I wouldn't bother to ask them if their puppies had ever tried to spend three hours staring at a piece of
lint on their floor. Because, probably not.
I tried out a couple of puppy classes. In the first one, Banksy
had mad skills compared to the other puppies. Except we
had one little problem, being that it was held in a little play
yard where fluttering shadows danced on the droughty dead
grass, and then the other half of the class was out on the
most dreaded surface of all, a smooth asphalt parking lot in
the breeze. The other puppies practiced heeling, my puppy
just wanted to stare at specks. She earned the funny nickname
OCD Pup.
Yeah, real funny, I'd think through gritted teeth as I tried to
convince my puppy to look at me instead of that crunchy little
leaf about to blow.
In the next class I tried, by only the second class I was ready
for the punchline to the hilarious joke about what happens
when ladies with slow little dogs go out and get a high drive
Border Collie. Have you heard that one? You know that crazy

31



Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run - February 2016

Contents
Clean Run - February 2016 - Cover1
Clean Run - February 2016 - Cover2
Clean Run - February 2016 - Contents
Clean Run - February 2016 - 4
Clean Run - February 2016 - 5
Clean Run - February 2016 - 6
Clean Run - February 2016 - 7
Clean Run - February 2016 - 8
Clean Run - February 2016 - 9
Clean Run - February 2016 - 10
Clean Run - February 2016 - 11
Clean Run - February 2016 - 12
Clean Run - February 2016 - 13
Clean Run - February 2016 - 14
Clean Run - February 2016 - 15
Clean Run - February 2016 - 16
Clean Run - February 2016 - 17
Clean Run - February 2016 - 18
Clean Run - February 2016 - 19
Clean Run - February 2016 - 20
Clean Run - February 2016 - 21
Clean Run - February 2016 - 22
Clean Run - February 2016 - 23
Clean Run - February 2016 - 24
Clean Run - February 2016 - 25
Clean Run - February 2016 - 26
Clean Run - February 2016 - 27
Clean Run - February 2016 - 28
Clean Run - February 2016 - 29
Clean Run - February 2016 - 30
Clean Run - February 2016 - 31
Clean Run - February 2016 - 32
Clean Run - February 2016 - 33
Clean Run - February 2016 - 34
Clean Run - February 2016 - 35
Clean Run - February 2016 - 36
Clean Run - February 2016 - 37
Clean Run - February 2016 - 38
Clean Run - February 2016 - 39
Clean Run - February 2016 - 40
Clean Run - February 2016 - 41
Clean Run - February 2016 - 42
Clean Run - February 2016 - 43
Clean Run - February 2016 - 44
Clean Run - February 2016 - 45
Clean Run - February 2016 - 46
Clean Run - February 2016 - 47
Clean Run - February 2016 - 48
Clean Run - February 2016 - 49
Clean Run - February 2016 - 50
Clean Run - February 2016 - 51
Clean Run - February 2016 - 52
Clean Run - February 2016 - 53
Clean Run - February 2016 - 54
Clean Run - February 2016 - 55
Clean Run - February 2016 - 56
Clean Run - February 2016 - 57
Clean Run - February 2016 - 58
Clean Run - February 2016 - 59
Clean Run - February 2016 - 60
Clean Run - February 2016 - 61
Clean Run - February 2016 - 62
Clean Run - February 2016 - 63
Clean Run - February 2016 - 64
Clean Run - February 2016 - 65
Clean Run - February 2016 - 66
Clean Run - February 2016 - Cover3
Clean Run - February 2016 - Cover4
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