nineteen

The smallest dogs ran first on Sunday morning. Roman Markoff’s Toy Poodle, Monet, was on fire over the first three jumps, the dog walk, the tire jump, the weaves. Then he dashed into the tunnel, had a barkfest inside, and finally shot out the other end to finish the course just in time to qualify. He was followed by several Pomeranians, a Toy Poodle, Giselle Swann and her Maltese, Precious, and a long-haired Chihuahua.

“Do they seem slow through the tunnel to you?” Tom stood beside me, arms crossed and baseball cap pulled low against the sun.

“A little,” I said. The tunnel was set up with a ninety-degree bend in the middle, half of it running parallel to the dog walk, and the other part passing beneath the elevated horizontal board. “Maybe the light inside is funny?”

The last dog of the eight-inch class skipped the tunnel entirely, so didn’t qualify. Tom and I ran onto the course at Marietta’s signal to reset the jumps to twelve inches for dogs eleven to fourteen inches tall.

The first dog on course was a Pembroke Welsh Corgi. I didn’t know her, so assumed she was from out of town. She came in barking and earned an NQ—a non-qualify score—at the first jump, which she by-passed entirely. From there on, though, she ran as fast her as her short legs would carry her until she reached the tunnel. She entered it at a good clip but shot right back out the end she’d gone in, provoking pockets of laughter outside the ring. Her handler tried to send her back in, but no dice. They finished the rest of the course and left the ring.

Next up was Tess, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel from South Bend. I knew her and her owner, Joan something, from trials around the state. Tess ran at a steady pace, tail wagging the whole way. She seemed to take a long time through the tunnel, but at least she came out the correct end and finished her run within the time limit.

I was beginning to think there really was something wrong with the obstacle. Most dogs love the tunnel once they learn to run through it. A lot of agility people swear there’s a suction effect because so many dogs add an extra tunnel or two to their runs. Then again, light, wind, and setting can make familiar objects look strange, for dogs as for us.

The twelve-inch class wrapped up ten minutes behind schedule. Two more dogs, a Dachshund and a Miniature Schnauzer, negotiated the tunnel, and five others skipped it one way or another. I thought about taking a peek inside as we reset the jumps, but the judge seemed impatient to keep things rolling, so I let it go.

The first dog in the sixteen-inch class was Caper, a little red-tri Aussie from Toledo. I needed to get Jay ready for the next height group, but decided to watch Caper run first. Her owner, Bud Monroe, was a fire fighter. He was also a member of a wilderness search-and-rescue team, and Caper was his SAR dog as well as his agility teammate. I had photographed them during a training exercise a few months earlier, and I knew that Caper had recently found a missing four-year-old who wandered away from a campsite near Lake Erie.

Caper waited at the start line with her front end down, fanny in the air, nubby tail wagging. Her whole body quivered and she let out a series of staccato barks. Bud gave the signal and she was off, her red coat flashing like sparks in the wind. She cleared the first three jumps, sped over the dog walk, sailed through the tire jump, whipped through the weave poles, and shot into the tunnel. And then she backed out the way she had entered, lay down, and started to bark.

Bud, who was sprinting to the next obstacle, spun around and stared at his dog. The judge muttered something I couldn’t make out, and a collective sigh of regret rose from the spectators. If it had been any other dog, I would have seen just a performance slip-up, but I knew what Caper’s behavior meant in other contexts. I felt a little chill and thought, this can’t be good.

“What’s she doing?” Giselle had come up beside me.

Tom and I answered in unison, “Indicating.”

“What?”

Bud ran toward Caper. She stopped barking but held her position, flicking her gaze from the tunnel to Bud and back. Marietta Santini stood across the ring from me, one hand across her mouth.

I spoke just above a whisper. “She’s indicating a find. There’s something in the tunnel.”

“What do you mean?” asked Giselle.

“She’s an SAR dog,” said Tom. “There’s something in the tunnel.”

No, I thought. Not something.

Someone.

Bud signaled Caper to stay and knelt at the opening to the tunnel. He said something I couldn’t make out and disappeared into the vinyl tube. Marietta climbed over the rope that defined the ring and ran to the tunnel. Tom did the same. Marietta bent to look inside, then straightened, patted her pockets, and shouted something at the judge, then at whoever might be listening.

“Phone! We need a phone!”

My first thought was that an animal was in the tunnel, injured or dead. It was possible, I supposed, since the equipment sat out all night. Someone’s dog? One of the cats that lived in the alley? Oh, please, not the little rainbow mama. A raccoon or possum or … Vet, I thought. Marietta’s going to phone the vet on call for the trial.

I climbed over the rope and joined the little group at the mouth of the tunnel. “Here!” I said, offering the phone. “What is it?” From the edge of my vision I saw Tom crawl into the other end of the tunnel and then back out.

Marietta pushed the phone back at me and said, “Call an ambulance.”

My breakfast turned over and I felt my knees start to fold. Not again, I thought. I sank to the ground. I managed to hit 9-1-1, but when I tried to speak, nothing came out. Marietta took the phone from me and gave the operator the information, then tossed it back at me. The morning air was comfortable, but the night’s frost hadn’t completely left the grass and the cold seeped through my jeans and into my legs. But that wasn’t what made me shiver.

“I can’t believe this,” I said, mostly to myself. I’d been down this road twice in the past half year and as much I wanted—needed—to know who was in the tunnel and how badly hurt she or he was, I couldn’t ask. I looked the questions at Tom.

His mouth was tight, lips narrow, and when he spoke it was not to answer my question. “Call the police.”

“Tom?”

“It’s Rasmussen,” he said, his tone flat. “He’s dead.”