High in Trial - By Donna Ball Page 0,11
her head. “Crazy. On the other hand…” She brightened. “That opens up the field for somebody else to win high in trial.” Like I said, she was as chatty as her mother.
“He seemed to be taking it pretty well, though,” I observed, dragging the opening of the tunnel to face the A-frame. “It was the woman who was mad. Who is she, anyway?”
Ginny set the number cone beside the tunnel. “That’s his girlfriend, Marcie. Ex-girlfriend, I should say. They’re both in our agility club. And she should be mad. Neil’s running both Flame and Bryte this weekend, but Flame’s her dog, and she was counting on that MACH.”
“Oh yeah?” I said. “I’ve never seen anyone but Neil run her.”
“They co-own Flame and most of the other dogs,” said Ginny. “She’s the breeder. He’s the trainer. I think she’s always resented it a little that Neil got all the glory, and of course, now that they’re not together anymore, it’ll be a mess trying to assign custody of the dogs.”
To anyone but a dog person, that might sound strange. But in the case of competition dogs, even more than conformation show dogs, this was serious business.
“She said something about a contract.”
Ginny gave a little snort of amusement as she set a bar on the ground between two stanchions at the number six cone. “Doesn’t surprise me a bit. She’s a lawyer, and she’s probably got Neil tied up six ways from Sunday. He’ll be lucky if he walks away from this with his shirt. She probably only got together with Neil in the first place for his training skills.” She grinned and offered, before I could ask, “She’s president of the agility club, so naturally it’s all been a big scandal. Everyone’s gossiping.”
“Well,” I said, “the season’s just started. There’s plenty of time for Flame to get her MACH.”
“Not if they want to qualify for the Standard Cup,” Ginny said. “Entries have to be in by May first. And there isn’t another sanctioned trial in the region before then.”
“Wow,” I said. “I hope he’s able to run tomorrow, then.”
And that was when I remembered something odd. When Neil had first gotten up from his fall, he favored his right leg. But when he walked away from me just now, he favored his left.
Odd.
* * *
I was feeling pretty confident about the course. There was only one tricky part requiring a front cross between the tire jump and the A-frame, but my nemesis and Cisco’s, the dog walk, was the first obstacle, and I knew if we could get that out of the way we’d be okay. I’d checked the schedule, and we were in the first group. This was good news and bad news. The good news was that the course would still be fresh in my mind and there’d be no time for nerves to build up in me or boredom to build up in Cisco. The bad news was there would be very little time for warming up.
It was a big group, and the judge’s last group of the morning, so she didn’t waste any time as she called us all in for the briefing. In the novice classes the judges usually go out of their way to be welcoming and friendly, but as you move up through the levels they figure you don’t need quite as much encouragement to stay in the game. They do, however, generally take a moment to welcome the competitors at the beginning and wish them luck at the end. This one did neither. She informed us tersely of the set course time, reminded us to be on deck when the dog ahead of us reached the broad jump, and told us that a sit, not a down, would be required on the pause table. She gave us six minutes to walk the course— not five, not ten—and that was it. We were a pretty frantic group trotting around the obstacles, waving our arms and muttering to ourselves, plotting out our strategies in our heads. I was happier than ever to have had the extra time in the ring that setting up the course allowed me.
I took Cisco for a quick potty walk, turned my pockets inside out—a superstitious habit I have, just to make sure I don’t accidently walk into the ring with liver treats or a training clicker in my pocket—blew a kiss to Miles, and got into line with the other dogs in my jump height. I have another superstition, which