Clean Run - December 2019 - 18

When I first started agility, I could
run really fast without even trying. I
had slippy skateboarding shoes and
tiny little short shorts. I didn't need a
sports bra; there wasn't enough going on to jiggle. I thought I had a fat
roll around my stomach, except now
I know that wasn't a fat roll, that was
like a piece of gum. Don't talk to me
about rolls. The Y2k had happened, we
didn't turn into exploding robots, and
I found extreme pleasure in sending
my dog through a tunnel. Stranger
things have happened.
At first, running fast and pointing worked out pretty well. Although, I was out there on the uncomfortable fringe. Everybody
else was better. I taught Ruby weave poles by dangling a hot dog
through the poles, threading the dog in and out in the hopes of
grabbing a bite. Contacts were sort of this thing, kind of stopping but mostly vaguely pointing at the yellow and calling something out. It was vague. I trained Otterpop a lot better. She won
things on the days she ran fast.
My dogs went everywhere with me. Does that count as adulting? I bought little fans to blow cool air over them on long,
hot days. Never got around to having a baby. Spent a lot of
time getting perfect weave poles instead.
Otterpop was such a jerk. She bit. She howled. She rolled in
whatever stank the worst. She grabbed a stick, and off she
went. She was obsessed with me, and only me. And now she
spends her evenings hobbling as fast as she can go around our
living room, peeing by the back door and tracking it through
the house 'til I can capture her. She always smells like pee.

Sunday morning, 10 am
That's my friend Rob, giving a nod across the field. He taught
me how to serp. He's one of those friends that is happy to
talk about dogs or happy to talk about politics or happy to
talk about most anything else. We like a lot of the same songs,
and he used to let me run one of his dogs in what seems
like a lifetime ago. Lately, the topic is retirement. We've been
friends for fifteen years? Sixteen years? Longer? I can't even
remember now. I haven't seen him in months, we only see
each other at trials. He misses some to do other things. I miss
some for work, or for when my dog's been injured.
Next time I see him, I have to remember to ask him, does all
this time spent at agility count as pissing our lives away, or living life to its fullest? He's one of the smartest people I know.
Maybe he knows the answer to that one.

Sunday afternoon, 1:30 pm
One of my agility friends died, just like that. I found out by
shock when I opened up Facebook. A friend I only saw at an
occasional big event, but still someone who mattered. We
shared some laughs, a joke you'd think was dumb about hardboiled eggs. She's dead now, I won't see her ever again. Just
think of her when I eat an egg.
18

Sunday morning,
3:30 am
Otterpop and I go way back to
when I worked on the ranch near
the old apple orchards that got sold
and plowed over for boutique wine
grapes. She wasn't supposed to be a
friend. She was an obnoxious stray,
one of those dogs you collect by
mistake. I took her home from the
lady that owned the ranch down the
road because she looked like Ruby. I
tried to pawn her off on a family with
a red-haired devil child, but before I did, I realized, my god this
dog is going to bite someone and everyone if she doesn't die
first from bolting out the door trying to chase down a truck
to bite that. I liked her. She climbed on my chest and bit my
face, but in a nice way. She wanted to keep me. So, I kept her.
Not especially for agility, just because.
We've been everywhere together. Literally. We are joined at the
hips. She has awful separation anxiety and was always happier
with me than being left at home. Howling can happen anywhere,
but shooting a yelling dog with your pointy finger in the middle
of an airport to the applause from gathering travelers is way
better than mournful cries that neighbors could hear clear as a
bell. So that's what we did, for all our years, we stuck together
just like glue, me and Otterpop.
She would have done anything for me, but not now. Now she's
crazy and demented, and when the sun goes down, her brain
explodes till it comes back up again. Hear that? That's the
sound of flailing feet where she's stuck behind the chair, bashing herself into the wall.

Monday morning, 9:30 am
This new lady came the other day for a dog lesson, tearing
down the drive in a forest green, vintage Mercedes with peeling paint. As she flew past the parking spots, almost launching
off the overhang at the bottom, which would plummet her
down to a soft wood chip pile, the shady ringside tent, and a
huge old log, I ran out screaming, "Stop, stop, stop, stop, what
are you doing?!"
She laughed maniacally. "HELLO!"
I told her she was about to get her car stuck in not one but
three ways, could she just back up and park over here? I
pointed to the marked parking spaces.
"Oh, sure!" she cackled, and threw the car into reverse and
flew back up the drive. Somehow avoiding a water line, tree,
fence, and shed.
I ran up the steep drive. "What are you doing?" I yelled, waving
my arms to get her attention. She was about to back into an
electrical box in the owner's front yard. If she hits that thing, I
am so kicked out of here, my only lifeline to agility in town.
"You said to park up here!" she called happily.
"Down here!" I call back, pointing to the parking spots, where
I'd pointed before.
Clean Run | December 19

Clean Run - December 2019

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