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The second building had indeed escaped the chaos of the activated ceiling e sprinklers. Neither the cafeteria nor the agility arena was in any way affected. Next up was the Standard trial. This was designed as more of an obedience style of a race. The dogs had to cool their jets in the middle of their race. That was an interesting who’s-the-boss challenge. The dog needed to run, jump, climb, as fast as he can, then jump onto a square block and stay there on all four paws for five seconds, then go run, jump, and climb again as fast as he could.
This time we were going from shortest to tallest divisions. That was good for me, in a way. Sophie was a pro at standard agility races. She liked the waiting game. Where she was concerned, it was the chance to show off her speed twice.
As Valerie, Sophie, and I entered the main room, I paused. It was packed. Every seat was taken, and many people were sitting on the floor or in camping-style chairs they’d brought themselves.
“Wow,” I said. “I guess the audience members fleeing from the main building during the sprinklers malfunction has helped our turnout.”
Valerie snorted. “It’s always like this, Allie. If anything, it’s less crowded than last year. Sophie Sophistica has a large fan base. Most attendees work, so they can’t get here until late afternoon.”
I was more than a little skeptical, yet she pointed with her chin, and I spotted a banner that indeed read: “Sophie Sophistica 3rd Fan Club.” There were forty or fifty people wearing T-shirts with a picture of Sophie jumping over a gate with the same verbiage as the banner. Their motto wasn’t especially creative. They should have gone with “SST” and shown her on a rocket. Or used an emoji of an electric fan in the place of the word.
We both turned our attention to the electronic board, giving us the order or dogs competing. Sophie would be called soon. I needed to go play with her for a bit. “It’s going to be up to you to see that she hasn’t lost her edge by being forced to compete an hour later than anticipated,” Valerie told me.
“Well, Sophie doesn’t know that she’s been delayed by an hour.”
She put her hands on her hips and gave me a stare-down “You disappoint me, Allie. You know how dogs absorb their persons’ moods and energies. She’s been getting anticipatory jitters for an extra hour.”
“True. Sorry.”
She handed me her leash. “Don’t lose.”
I led Sophie to the practice jump and unhooked her leash. She looked at me as if surprised I’d deigned to take her for a practice jump, but she did fine. I played a game of patty paws with her and gave her a tummy rub. I decided to forgo hooking on her leash to lead her to the start line and left it on the designated table. This time I could see neither Valerie, nor Jesse from my position at the starting line. I was certain they were both in attendance. The lighting had changed somewhat since the morning round.
The residual tenderness in my toe was only noticeable now when I thought about it. I felt a surge of adrenaline. I looked down at Sophie, and she was looking up at me, awaiting my signal. From this angle, she looked like she was smiling. I could tell she felt it, too. We were ready to fly through this course.
“On your mark,” I told her, the command Valerie always used that meant to stand right behind the starting line. Meanwhile, I took several steps in front of her toward the first obstacle—a two-pole jump.
The starter said “go,” and we were off. Once again I was grateful for having played competitive college basketball. I slipped into my steely concentration mode. It felt like Sophie and I were on the identical wavelength.
Sophie was at her best. Regardless of what type of enterprise it is, beauty is on display when someone performs as if they were so in tune with their every motion that not a single movement is wasted. There was not even an instant of hesitation or distraction. I was superfluous in the ring; she had memorized the course from the moment she’d seen it. She leapt onto the paws-pause podium.
I eyed the automatic clock and counted along with it: “One. Two. Three. Four. Off!” I cried instead of five.
She tore around Mark as if he was inconsequential. This time, he remained motionless and silent. I, however, had put too much weight on my injured toe and took an awkward step. Yet Sophie did her thing and flew through the tire jump that served as the finish line.
On an impulse, I held out my arms, and she leapt into them with ease. The crowd let out a collective “Aww!” With the added five seconds for the pause table, she came in at 35.55 seconds, which was excellent for a preliminary eight-inch Standard competition. That was within six seconds of her time in the first round and was precisely what Valerie and I wanted to see from her.
There were two other eight-inch class jumpers yet to compete, but Sophie was in first place and would definitely have a top-three seed in her division. Again, her fan club was cheering wildly. I helped her to wave at them, even though I knew Valerie wouldn’t approve of my playfulness. To my surprise, when she met me at the exit gate, she put her hand on my shoulder and said, “Well done, Allida. Well done.” The lines in Babe, a movie about a pig that competes in a dog-herding competition, popped into my brain. Babe’s owner says to him, “That’ll do, Pig. That’ll do.” I grinned at the thought but kept it to myself. It wasn’t all that flattering to be compared to a pig.
I bided my time while awaiting my Standard-course run with Dog Face. He was the last competitor in the twenty-inch class. I was nervous. He wasn’t always disciplined at the pause table. Leaving early was a five-second penalty times the number of second-fractions in which he jumped the gun. Maybe it was bad karma. Maybe it was my anxiousness. Maybe the noise we both heard. In any case, Dog Face did indeed jump the gun. It was a five-second penalty. Everything else was clean and precise. His finishing time was 29.67 seconds, 34.67 with the penalty. He finished in second place in the twenty-inch jumps division. Sophie, too, had bested him in this second round, which I’m sure elated Valerie.
Jesse hugged me as I sagged a little in relief. “He made the finals! Easily!” he said. Border Collies rocked at agility training. They were pretty much born with these kinds of skills. Even so, both Sophie and Dog Face were in wonderful shape to win their respective divisions.
“No pause table in the finals,” I said, happily.
Baxter headed toward me. “You nailed it,” he said, giving me and then Jesse a high-five. “What’s up next for you?”
“Best in Toy,” Valerie answered for me as she approached.
Baxter and I merely looked at Valerie, surprise by her interruption.
“The doors here will reopen at seven tonight,” she continued, “and we can walk the Finals course. Meanwhile, we need to get going for the Best Toy Dog competition.”
“We do? Did one of your Yorkies qualify for Best in Toy division?” I asked.
“Yes. I’m surprised you didn’t hear Marsala trying to insult me on that very issue. She herself had chickened out and removed Tallyho from competing. Remember?”
“Oh, right.” Valerie was getting on my nerves again, and I struggled to keep the annoyance out of my voice. “At the time, I was occupied with having driven a half-inch tack into my toe. How self-centered of me.”
She clicked her tongue. “I’ll see you in the ring. Good luck.”
“You’re handling your Yorkie yourself?”
“Yes. Hence my comment about seeing you in the ring.” She hesitated. “Do you want to walk over there with me?”
“No, I have to force Bingley the Beagle to race around the novice agility course first,” I said. I glanced over at the ring, where the crew was already removing two of the obstacles and simplifying the course.
“They’re doing that now? I assumed they did that first thing this morning, per usual.”
“I think they want to establish a relaxed mood and lower audience expectations from the Masters competitions. In any case, Bingley is up first.”
“I can see how that might be a good idea.” She grinned. “In fact, I’m sticking around to watch this, too.”