High in Trial

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FRIDAY

The Present


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TWO

Twenty-nine hours before the shooting





I’ve always thought I’d like to write a book entitled Everything My Dog Needs to Know My Mother Taught Me. My mother wasn’t a dog trainer. But she was a great mother. Aside from how to tie my shoelaces and the importance of regular dental checkups, she imparted quite a few important life lessons, such as:

—Honesty is the best policy. It’s easier than lying and usually has fewer consequences.

—Always do your best. Less is cheating.

—Winning is better than losing. Always.

Okay, so the meaning of that last one is probably more like trying to win is its own reward, or perhaps even it’s not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game. I have to admit, I’ve always been a little on the competitive side. A teacher once described me, somewhat generously, as goal-oriented. My goal is winning.

My name is Raine Stockton. My father was a judge and my mother was the arbiter of all things gentle and proper in the small Smoky Mountain town of Hansonville, North Carolina, where I still live. I’m afraid I’ve fallen a little short of her standards when it comes to gentility and propriety, but I do try my best to impart to my dogs the same important life lessons she taught me. Honesty, for example, is as desirable a quality in a dog as it is in a human, and you hear a lot of talk about “honest” dogs on the competitive circuit. Frankly, I’ve never met a dishonest dog, but when trainers and handlers call a dog honest, what they usually mean is he’s consistent, dependable, and earnest. What you see is what you get.

My golden retriever Cisco is extremely consistent: consistently distractible, consistently curious, consistently unpredictable. For example, with only one group ahead of us for our very first run of the agility season—the one that would set the tone for the rest of the year—he was completely and obsessively focused, not on me, his partner, his handler, and the only member of our two-member team who could actually read the course map the judge designed, but on Brinkley, a sassy golden retriever who’d recently become his new BFF.

Brinkley, good dog that he was, was warming up by weaving through his handler’s legs and practicing focus by dropping to a sit on command and maintaining eye contact. Cisco watched him in eager fascination, ears forward and grinning, as I sank down onto the bleachers, tugging him into place beside me. The Excellent class was finishing up; Open—in which we were entered—was next. Cisco had completed walk time, play time, warm-up time at the practice jump, and a pep talk. I was wearing my lucky Golden Retriever Club of America sweatshirt, my lucky agility socks, and the Air Bud cap my young friend Melanie brought back from her spring break trip to Disney World in Orlando. My shoelaces were double knotted. My long brown ponytail was threaded through the back of my hat, securely out of my way. I was ready. Cisco was ready. There was nothing more we could do until the judge called our class.

We’d traveled from Hansonville to Pembroke, South Carolina, for the three-day AKC sanctioned agility trial, which was the traditional opening of the competitive season in our part of the country. It was a gorgeous April weekend, and the venue was perfect: huge open agricultural fairgrounds and exhibition center with two covered pavilions, a concrete livestock building for crating, plenty of public restrooms, a separate concessions building surrounded by picnic tables, and acres of rolling grass for setting up shade canopies and walking dogs. There was even RV parking on site, and every time I walked past the camping area with the smell of charcoal-grilled burgers and the sight of happy dogs lounging in their ex-pens in front, I felt a stab of yearning. Although I had no complaints about my luxurious room at the Pembroke Host Inn on this trip, most doggie motels left a great deal to be desired. An RV was any dog show enthusiast’s secret dream.

If I had had an RV, for example, I would have brought my two Aussies, Mischief and Magic, and I would have entered every class being offered this weekend. I might even have a chance of winning one. On the other hand, Cisco and I had trained all winter—well, part of it, anyway—and I was feeling good about our chances. I only hoped Cisco shared my confidence.

Of course, there were a few advantages to staying in a motel rather than an RV, even if it did mean limiting myself to one dog. Like room service, for example, and a full stand-up shower. And the fact that my boyfriend, Miles, had surprised me by driving in from Atlanta last night and had immediately upgraded our room to a mini-suite. I have to admit, the evening wouldn’t have been nearly as enjoyable had we been staying in an RV with three dogs.

I always feel a little silly saying that—“boyfriend”—partly because I don’t think any woman over sixteen should call any man a boyfriend and partly because, well, I don’t exactly know what else to call him. For one thing, Miles is hardly a boy. He’s in his mid-forties with short spiky salt-and-pepper hair, a rock-hard body, and nice gray eyes. He has questionable political opinions, a bullheaded way of getting what he wants, and more money than I even want to know about. He’s funny and charming and smart, and he makes me laugh even when I’m mad at him. When we’re together, he always cooks. He’s also the dad of one of my favorite people in the world, the aforementioned ten-year-old Melanie, who’d begged to forgo a school field trip to Washington, D.C., this weekend in order to attend this trial. Melanie had aspirations of seeing her own golden retriever puppy, Pepper—who was currently in the very capable care of their housekeeper in Atlanta—bring home a slew of blue ribbons one day. While I agreed with her father that a hands-on experience in American government should take priority for the weekend, I also secretly agreed with Melanie that it’s never too soon to start exposing a puppy to competition.

The upside of having Melanie in Washington was that Miles and I had the weekend to ourselves—if you didn’t count the three hundred or so dogs between us—which was something we’d learned to value since our relationship had taken a more romantic turn. Is he my boyfriend? I still struggle with that. But what else do you call someone who drives four hours just to watch you compete in an event that lasts less than a minute?

Here’s something else my mother taught me: Be careful who you date, because you can’t always choose who you fall in love with.

“So,” said Miles, snapping open a bag of corn chips, “explain the rules to me again.”

An agility trial is always more fun with a buddy—someone to cheer you on, help with strategy, and keep you from going bonkers between runs. Usually I trial with Maude, my business partner, oldest friend, and the best dog trainer I know, but since we were rather desperately trying to keep Dog Daze, our boarding and training center, above water we agreed the business could spare only one of us per weekend. This was my weekend, and while it’s true that trialing with Maude was both educational and supportive, Miles was a lot more fun. For one thing, I liked seeing the game through the eyes of someone who was new to it, and what girl doesn’t like that slightly superior feeling that comes along with explaining things to her guy? For another thing, I’d recently discovered he was almost as much of a junk food junkie as I was, and as everyone knows, dog shows are junk food nirvana.

He offered me the bag of chips, but I shook my head—bad idea to load up on corn chips before a run—and explained, “Okay, right now we’re watching the Excellent B Class, which is pretty much as hard as it gets. What’s more, this is the twenty-inch jump height group—border collies and Aussies, mostly, who are some of the fastest dogs in the world. Unless you actually have a border collie or an Aussie, you really don’t want to be in that group. Those numbers on the cones beside each piece of equipment mark the course. The object is to get your dog to follow the numbers faster and with fewer mistakes than any other dog. The trick is that you have to memorize the course and you don’t get to practice it with your dog beforehand. But you see the way they’re arranged in loops and figure eights and weird triangles? The handler has to do some pretty fancy maneuvering to get his dog from one obstacle to the other without tripping over him. You’re not allowed to touch your dog. You get disqualified if you do. It’s all done with body language and voice commands. The team with the fastest time and the fewest faults wins first place, and at the end of the weekend, the dog with the highest overall score wins high in trial.”

There was, of course, a great deal more to it than that, but most people who weren’t themselves agility competitors would have a hard enough time following the action even with that broad outline of the rules. Miles, however, was unfazed. In the short time I’d known him I discovered his interests were eclectic and his curiosity unbounded; he had very little trouble catching on to new things.

“Hmm.” Miles watched a border collie sail off the teeter-totter and dash through the tunnel. The judge’s hand flew up. “So, do people bet on these things or what?’

“What do you mean, bet?”

“You know, like at the dog track. The greyhounds.” He dug into the bag again, focused on the Australian shepherd who was sailing over the first set of serpentine jumps. Cisco turned to him hopefully, the crinkling of the bag having successfully drawn his attention away from Brinkley.

“Of course not.” I was mildly offended. “Don’t be silly.”

“Then what’s the percentage?” He started to sneak a corn chip to Cisco, caught my look, and pretended innocence as he popped the chip into his own mouth instead. “Who pays for the training, the prizes, the shows? What do you get out of it?”

“Entry fees pay for the shows,” I explained patiently, “and the sponsoring dog clubs do all the work. As for the prizes—a few hundred dollars cover the ribbons and dog toys. What did you think, there was a jackpot cash prize for high in trial?” I shrugged. “We do it for the fun of it, that’s all. It’s a game.”

He gave a slow shake of his head. “Wasted opportunity,” he said. “If Vegas ever gets word of this, look out.”

I helped myself to a chip—okay, a couple of chips—and gave him a suspicious look. “Okay, you don’t drink, you don’t smoke, you hardly ever swear, and you don’t mind driving four hours to watch a dog show. So gambling’s your vice, right? You’ve got bookies lined up from here to Atlantic City and you drop a couple grand every weekend on football.”

“I work too hard for my money to gamble with it,” he replied mildly. “Whoa, look at that little guy go. Are you watching that, Cisco? That’s the time to beat.”

Cisco grinned at him happily, ears pricking with renewed expectation as he watched Miles’s hand dive into the bag again.

“Whatever you do,” I told him sternly, “don’t feed my dog.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“And make sure that bag is out of sight before we go into the ring.”

“You got it.”

“There are AKC regulations about training on the grounds, you know. And food in the vicinity of the ring is absolutely forbidden.”

“Easy, sweetheart. Like you said, it’s just a game.”

I gave him a look known to send large dogs trembling to their crates. I could see him fight back a grin as he crumpled up the empty bag and took out his phone. “Don’t worry,” he said, scrolling through his messages. “No food, no training, no pissing off the judge. Horse racing is just a game, too, you know, but two people have been murdered at the Kentucky Derby in the past ten years alone over a horse.”

I stared at him. “How do you know things like that?”

He shrugged, not looking up from his phone. “I keep up.”

I rolled my eyes elaborately, and a woman taking a seat a few feet away from me caught the expression and grinned. “Husbands,” she said.

“He’s not my husband,” I objected quickly.

Miles said at the same time, “Not her husband.”

That caused me to frown at him a little. I couldn’t say why, but he was still checking messages and didn’t notice. The woman, who should by now have no doubt as to the nature of our relationship, nodded at Cisco. “Great dog,” she said. “I was watching you warm up. He’s got real heart.”

I rubbed Cisco’s ears and said proudly, “Thanks.” Cisco, who always knew when he was being complimented, tilted his head back to grin at me. “This is Cisco, and I’m—”

“Raine Stockton,” she said. “I know.”

Cisco and I are pretty well known in our hometown, both for our search-and-rescue work and as a therapy dog team. We get our pictures in the paper now and then, and if there’s a fundraiser for the humane society, I’m always the one who does the radio interview. But had our fame spread as far as Pembroke, South Carolina? Even my ego was having trouble believing that.

My surprise must have been evident because she explained. “I recognized you from your Facebook page.”

“Oh.” I relaxed. Everyone in dogs was on Facebook and Twitter; we posted action shots of our champions to each other’s timelines and tweeted our triumphs like gleeful children. I tried to remember if I’d seen this woman’s picture anywhere before.

“I’m Aggie Connor,” she went on, reaching across the bleacher to extend her hand. “Celestial Goldens.”

Of course she was. The sweatshirt she wore had the kennel name, Celestial Goldens, written in script above the happy face of a golden retriever on the front. Since the AKC frowned upon apparel that identified a dog to the judge, I assumed she must be here to watch someone else complete. She was a large woman in her forties or fifties with short curly hair and work-worn hands, and as I shook one of those hands, I made the connection.

“I know who you are,” I said, relieved to be out of the dark. “My friend, Maude, has Sundance Goldens.” The dog show world is a relatively small one, and the chances are good that you will meet someone you know, or almost know, at every show.

She grinned. “I know. My daughter Ginny is running Gunny in Novice. One of Maude’s dogs is Gunny’s sire.”

I nodded. “Sure, I know Ginny and Gunny.” In fact, I’d never met Ginny, but had admired her young golden’s focus in the ring, and they had had a clean run.

She nodded proudly. “Gunny is one of the most honest dogs I’ve ever met. There’s nothing he wouldn’t do for Ginny, and he’ll get his title this weekend. First time out.”

I thought that might be a little optimistic, but smiled encouragingly.

“Maude has fine dogs,” Aggie added. “That’s why I wanted to use one in my breeding program. I got four champions out of that litter.”

I said, “I’ll be sure to tell her.” But the chances were that Maude already knew the history of any dog in which her kennel name had been involved. She’d been my father’s clerk for thirty years and her propensity for meticulous recordkeeping had carried over into the world of dogs.

Aggie chuckled and confirmed my thoughts with, “She knows. We keep up with each other’s dogs. In fact, that’s why I’m glad to see you here. Maude’s line has produced some solid working dogs, and I hear your Cisco has a pretty good start on a career in search and rescue himself. Ginny’s moving to Boulder next month, and she’s been talking about training Gunny for avalanche search and rescue when she gets out there. I know she’ll want to talk to you about it, since Cisco and Gunny are practically cousins.”

I started to protest that I didn’t know anything about avalanche dogs when Miles, one of the most social people I know and an annoyingly efficient multitasker, glanced up from text-messaging and invited, “Why don’t you and your daughter have dinner with us tonight? The hotel dining room isn’t bad. Miles Young,” he added, stretching across me to offer his hand. “Not her husband.”

Aggie shook his hand, pleased to accept the invitation, and I smiled a little weakly. Of course I’m always up for spending time with another golden retriever lover, but I’d kind of been looking forward to room service that night. Room service was, in fact, the best thing about traveling with dogs.

We chatted a little more, and I learned that both Aggie and her daughter were part of the host club for this event. Miles held up his phone to me, which displayed a picture of Melanie standing in front of the Washington Monument, and said, “Mel says hi.” I told him to tweet hi back from Raine and Cisco, and the next group was called.

“Summer is up,” called the gate steward. “Flame on deck!”

“Flame?” I said, leaning forward to get a better look at the intense little border collie who was next in line. “As in Neil Kellog and Flame? I didn’t know they were going to be here!”

“Who are they?” Miles asked.

In the time it took him to ask the question, Summer broke her start-line stay, completely destroying her handler’s two-obstacle lead out, sailed over the first jump, took a wrong course, knocked over the bars on the next two jumps, and tore into the tunnel backward. The whistle sounded when she emerged from the tunnel and jumped over the seesaw without touching it, and a ring crew flooded in to repair the damage.

“Neil is last year’s national champion, that’s all,” I told Miles, “with his other dog, Bryte. And he won the Standard Cup two years in a row. Bryte’s the fastest dog in the Southeast, and her sister, Flame, isn’t far behind.” I reached for his phone. “I’ll bet you anything she’s the next champion. Let me borrow your phone. I want to video this.”

He turned a shoulder to me, eyes on the screen. “Hold on. Downloading from Belgium. Where’s yours?”

“Back at the camp in Cisco’s crate.”

Now he looked up. “You left your phone in a dog crate? What for?”

“Because that’s where you keep important stuff at a dog show.”

Now his expression turned incredulous. “Did you leave your purse there, too?”

I arched an eyebrow. “My mother always said all a lady needs when she’s with a gentleman is a lipstick and a twenty.” I snatched the phone from him. “After all, you’re paying for dinner, right?” I turned on the camera function and zoomed in. “Who knows when I’ll get another chance to video a run like this. People pay hundreds of dollars to go to one of Neil’s workshops.”

“Of course you’ve heard the stories about him,” offered Aggie, lowering her voice a little.

The dog show circuit abounds with stories about everyone, but you know what they say: If you can’t say anything good about somebody, come sit by me. I was no more immune to gossip than anyone else, and I turned to her, immediately interested. “What?”

“He dopes his dogs,” she confided.

There are a few respectable breeders in this world, those who are dedicated to improving the health, temperament, and function of their chosen breed, who monitor the welfare of their puppies for a lifetime and take full responsibility for making sure they always have the best possible homes, care, and training. These people aren’t in it for the money, but for the love of the dog, and they deserve our respect. Maude believed Aggie Connor was just such a breeder, or she never would have loaned her one of her dogs for stud. Whatever she had to say, therefore, automatically gained credibility with me.

To a point, of course. The thing to remember about competition, any competition, is that everyone has an agenda.

Miles said, “Steroids? For dogs?”

I shook my head impatiently. “Not steroids.”

“Thyroid supplement,” supplied Aggie.

I explained, “It amps your dog up. Not exactly illegal, but not very smart, either. The dog’s heart can literally explode.”

“Steroids for dogs,” Miles repeated.

I started to argue, but then admitted, “I guess so. Kind of.”

He tilted his head toward me skeptically. “You’re sure Vegas isn’t involved in this?”

I ignored him, studying beautiful Flame and her tall, wiry handler. “I don’t believe it,” I said. “Look at her focus. Besides, who would take chances with a dog that good?”

Aggie shrugged. “People will do all kinds of things for money, and this year’s Standard Cup is worth a hundred grand. They’re only inviting MACHs, you know, and Neil’s a shoo-in with either Flame or Bryte. He only needs one more double-Q on each of them.”

Miles said, “What’s a MACH?”

“Master agility champion,” I said. “It’s as high as you can go in the sport, and not many dogs make it that far.”

Miles raised an eyebrow. “A hundred grand, huh? I thought you said there weren’t any cash prizes.”

“I meant in competitive agility. Standard is a pet food company,” I explained, “and the Standard Cup isn’t a sanctioned agility trial. Every year they put together a trial with the top competitors from each region, and the winner gets a big silver cup and a check. ESPN usually carries it, and last year Animal Planet did a whole series of shows about the dogs that were competing. The Road to the Standard Cup.”

He nodded approvingly. “Now that makes sense. I knew somebody had to be making money somewhere.”

I spared him a disparaging glance. “It’s always about money with you.”

“Sweetheart,” he assured me, and gave Aggie a smiling wink, “it’s all about money with everything.”

Sometimes I really wonder why I even like him.

“Flame is up,” called the gate steward as the crew scurried from the ring.

I pulled Cisco between my knees, crossed my ankles in front of him, and wrapped his leash securely around my palm, focusing the camera phone with the other hand. There was about to be a lot of shouting. “Watch this,” I told Miles. “They’re amazing. And if I had any money, I would bet on her.”

“I’d take a piece of that, girlfriend,” said Aggie.

Neil stepped to the start line, slipped Flame’s collar and leash over her head, and put her in a sit-stay. He walked confidently away from her, past the first two jumps, past the chute, past the tire, to the jump spiral, a five-obstacle lead out. I held my breath, but the little dog sat like a statue, her eyes boring holes into his back, every muscle in her body coiled to spring. He turned, made eye contact with his dog, and raised his hand. Almost before he completed the motion she had taken two jumps, the chute, and another jump in the precise correct sequence and was by his side, both of them in motion. The crowd was on its feet, cheering them on, as he pivoted to guide her through the spiral, over the bar jump, up and over the A-frame—perfect contacts!—to the pause table for a flawless five-second down-stay. He never said a word. It was as though they were telepathically linked. I’d never seen anything like it. A one-eighty into the weave poles, the seesaw, the broad jump, then into a blind cross around the A-frame and into the tunnel. With only four obstacles to go, the unthinkable happened. Coming out of the pivot that had sent his dog into the tunnel and swinging the opposite way to meet her on the other side, Neil lost his balance and went down in the dirt. A collective cry of dismay went up from the spectators.

Flame came flying out of the tunnel with her handler nowhere in sight. But this is what makes a championship team. Before his dog exited the tunnel Neil called, “Over, over, walk it!” He couldn’t see Flame and she couldn’t see him, but he was guiding her through the course and she was doing what she was trained to do. He regained his feet just as she touched the down contact zone on the dog walk, but he was still three obstacles behind her and there was no way he could catch up now. Amazingly, Flame looked as though she would take the last two jumps on her own, and we were all on our feet, cheering in anticipation as Flame raced toward the finish to the kind of applause and cheers usually reserved for Olympic athletes breaking a world record. We were all competitors, of course, and we all wanted the blue ribbon, but when you see something like that you start to understand why people say it really is all about how you play the game.

And then the most astonishing thing happened. As she made the turn toward the last jump and the finish line, the border collie stopped so suddenly that a cloud of dust flew up around her. She spun and barked—a typical sign of frustration in this high-strung breed—then ran back over the jump she had just taken to return to Neil and leapt into his arms. A groan of disappointment rose up from the crowd as the judge blew her whistle to indicate an elimination. I lowered the camera in disbelief. They were out.

“I guess that means they didn’t win,” observed Miles, holding out his hand for the phone.

“What a shame,” exclaimed Aggie, settling back into her seat. “She must have spooked after he fell.”

“I guess,” I murmured. I returned Miles’s phone to him absently, watching Neil limp out of the ring with Flame in his arms. “It’s just that…”

“What?” Miles, who was learning to read me too well, glanced at me curiously.

I shook my head. “Nothing. I thought I saw something, but it’s silly.”

“Oh, look,” said Aggie, waving happily to someone below as the ring crew came in to set up the equipment for the next class. “There’s Ginny.”

“I’m going to help set up the ring,” I said, handing Cisco’s leash to Miles. “Stay right here. Keep your eye on him. And no food.”

Miles tucked his phone back into his pocket and held up his hand in a solemn promise.

“And don’t let Cisco play with the other dogs.”

“I won’t.”

I started down the stairs. “And don’t let anyone pet him.”

He gave me a long-suffering look. “Maybe Cisco and I should just wait in the car.”

You see, if I had an RV I wouldn’t have this problem.

“Just stay here.” I hurried down to the ring.



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