Mr. and Mrs. Dog: Our Travels, Trials, Adventures, and Epiphanies

Eternity in an Hour

165 EternityinanHour L uke was out of the running. June would decide if we got through to the semifinals. How many miles had it been? How many trials on how many fields? How many training sessions? The Latin root of “hallucination” is “alucinatus”: “to dream.” Ican’twatchAntiquesRoadshowortheSuperBowlwithoutmarvelingat our ability to care about zip­shit. Two million dollars for a pasteboard base­ ball card? A $27 million annual paycheck for a person uncommonly skilled at hurling a fourteen­ounce football? Our visions are more important than cat scans. All we featherless bipeds yearn to hold eternity in an hour. Luke, my sometime miracle worker, was kaput. June is plain vanilla. When I bought the fourteen­month­old smooth­ coated gyp she didn’t like to walk into sheep facing her, but she was clever. If she ran at sheep full tilt and “bumped them,” instead of facing her in a rude threatening manner, the sheep panicked and ran. “Well,” June patiently excused herself, “as you may have noticed: the sheep are MOVING.” And so they were. Flat out, their mindfulness in tatters and their flock­ ing glue unstuck. With a wolf on their heels, sheep hit the panic button. Unthinking sheep cannot be controlled. On the trial field they often separate, two and three or (worse) one and four. A single sheep facing a sheepdog/wolf is reduced to one instinctual urge: ESCAPE. Over dog, over fence—“Martha, there’ll be time to think LATER!” But June is clever and she eventually learned that sheep facing her, low­ ering their butting heads, and pawing the earth were almost always bluff­ ing and if they weren’t she could dodge their charge. She also learned that when sheep panicked she had to run wider and miles further to reassert control. June doesn’t like to work harder than needs be, and, like most sheep­ 166 mr. and mrs. dog dogs, she has a highly developed aesthetic sensibility. Bumping sheep cre­ ated, er, tacky results. But June never entirely forgot that handy little trick. While she no lon­ ger “bumps” sometimes she “buzzes” them: June likes to make sheep jump. When they are resolutely uncooperative or dullards, June disciplines them by coming so close their ovine blood pressure skyrockets, their minds go blank, and they LEAP. That’s June’s sheep buzz. It makes her feel like a puppy again. June knows she oughtn’t but sometimes they push her too far. If my whistles get excited, June takes my panic as permission. Judges do not approve of the sheepdog buzzing the sheep. They deduct points—sometimes many points—for that fault. If they think the sheep­ dog was attempting a grip they may disqualify the dog and it’s no good explaining June never BITES sheep she just likes to BUZZ them. “Sir. Thank you very much.” (Sheepdog trials are the only sport I know where you’re disqualified with deliberate courtesy.) Excepting her one character flaw, June is a dependable worker. She’s a good listener and rarely loses her temper. In any case it was too late to break her of the habit. It was too late to introduce her to five or ten more venues or sheep breeds she hadn’t worked before. Tomorrow afternoon, number 362, sixty­second dog to run on qualifying field three. Showtime. When reality fails, visions intercede. June’s life coach, Rachael, was en­ rolled in film school at the University of Texas. Let’s see: that’d be central daylight time, six hours earlier. Rachael’d be up by now. “Hi Rach . . . Oh, not too bad . . . Raining. I never saw so much rain. Doing okay. Luke won a trial . . . June runs tomorrow, probably about two o’clock. Say, can I ask a favor?” In my Gilcrug bedroom, June lay quietly with her chin on her paws. “Thanks, Rach.” I held my cellphone to June’s doggy ear so Rachael could whisper advice, prayers, and magic incantations. I’m not proud. Friday morning was dry. The sun was out and for the first time in days I left my moldy rain gear in the car. I’d almost left Luke in his Gilcrug crate Eternity in an Hour 167 but he’d been crated ten hours overnight, and popping him back for ten more after a thirty­minute predawn walk seemed cruel. Yesterday, scores of 190 (of 220) got through to the...