This is one of my competition winning short stories. It is one of my earliest successes and it was judged by the RSPCA. So naturally enough the story had to be animal based. At the time I had a golden retriever named, Elsa and we attended training classes and generally had a great time. She was super to train, very quick to please; usually me but sometimes she couldn't resist being a rebel. We always had a Christmas party where we would do something a bit special at the training group we attended. This is the story of Elsa breaking the rules at one of those parties and loving every minute of it.
We
were ready. After weeks of preparation, success was only a few short days away.
We had trained hard. What could go wrong? Elsa, like most golden retrievers, was
intelligent, alert and quick to learn. She had attended obedience classes from
the age of six months and by the grand old age of seven years she had ‘been
there, done that, and…’ well, you know what I mean. Suffice to say she had
mastered far more complicated exercises than ‘food refusal’. In fact it wasn’t
even the first time she had performed the food refusal exercise and come
through it with
 |
| Elsa |
flying colours! So why was I worrying? Well, for some reason
best known to themselves the organisers had decided not to use the reasonably
resistible dried dog food. Oh no! This time sausages were to be used instead.
Did I
mention that Elsa was a golden retriever? Put a Goldie in the vicinity of accessible sausages and you have a sausage-fest. Goldies have a passion for
food, any food and let’s face it sausages weren’t just any old food. For her to
walk past a plump, succulent sausage without even a second look would be
nothing short of a miracle, but three weeks and two and a half kilos of plump
succulent sausage later I believed we were ready; the technique perfected.
It was
a simple enough routine - I tell her to sit and stay, I walk away from her, I
turn to face her, I wait for a second or two, then I call her to me. Elementary
stuff. Puppy-hood stuff even, except, between me and her lay, The Sausage, and
to get to me
she had to pass it.
But hey, no problem, we were ready. Right?
On the
day of the competition we arrived at the hall in plenty of time. As we ran
through our usual warm-up routines Elsa was keen and alert. I was quietly
confident. When it was time for the judging we walked sedately onto the floor
for the first of the exercises. She worked well and listened carefully to my
commands. Taking our turn at each of the exercises we sailed through Seek Back
and Send Away then Scent Retrieval. It was looking good.
Then
it was time for the Food Refusal. As soon as she saw the small mat that the
sausage was to be placed on she began bouncing with excitement. As each of her
peers took their turn the tension grew until she was whining softly to herself.
Just keen that’s all.
I told myself, but there was a definite tremor in my confidence. So I reminded myself of how much she loved to work and that she was
probably just wanting to get on with it and I felt… worried.
At
last it was our turn.
I walk
onto the floor with Elsa at heel like the beautifully trained dog she pretended…
I mean she is. We take up position at one end of the hall and I give the
command;
‘Elsa,
sit, stay.’
I walk
away. I pass the sausage and get to the other end of the hall where I turn to
face her and wait. Elsa, quivering with suppressed excitement, sits waiting for
the recall command.
Just
keen don’t worry.
With my confidence registering point eight on the tremor scale I give the
command.
‘Elsa,
come.’
And
she leaps into action with such speed her claws are scrabbling for purchase on
the hall’s wooden floor. When she at last moves forward it is horribly obvious
that all her attention is now on the sausage not on me.
‘No.
Leave. Down,’ I yell
The
three commands, hot on each others heels are never-the-less just in time. She drops
down nose comfortable resting on the mat and 5 cm away from the sausage.
Back
in control - of myself - I clear my throat. (Did it sound like a growl?
Personally I don’t believe it did despite what they said later!) The other
competitors and their dogs are now absolutely silent, watching, waiting. I try
not to notice them and focus on Elsa.
I remind her to, ‘Leave it.’
And
then, ‘Come.’
She
rises slowly to her feet but her head seems too heavy for her neck and she has
trouble lifting it from the mat where the sausage is nestled. At last she
begins to drag herself forward but it becomes obvious that her feet are now
caught in some Treacherous Treacle Trap and she has trouble moving her legs as
well as her head. Two tiny steps, three, the silence is total; her reputation
is on the line. Three and a half strides… and the sausage was gone! It happened
so fast I didn’t have time to draw breath. In fact it happened so fast I’m
still not sure how she did it exactly.
The
crowd went wild with delight and Elsa, grinning in immense satisfaction, was
off on a lap of honour around her fellow competitors. They all congratulated
her with ecstatic yelps on the audacity and speed of the strike and she thanked
them graciously, lapping up the adulation as her due.
‘ELSA,
COME’, I screamed over the noise and thus reminded of my existence she started back
to me. On the way, however she suddenly remembered her manners and made a rapid
detour, to the other side of the hall, to thank the kind person who had
provided the sausage and made it all possible, checking out his pockets at the
same time, then she came back. Perfectly of course and sat in the perfect
return position with a perfectly huge smile on her face and her magnificent
tail sweeping the floor behind her.
As I
was saying, the whole problem of working with an intelligent, alert and quick
to learn dog who has attended obedience classed from the age of six months is
they are simply too smart for their owner’s good. I scowled at her. Elsa on the
other hand was absolutely delighted with her performance. She looked up at me
and her grin said as plain as any words, ‘Technique Perfected!’
