It’s dark by the time my wife and the dog return from dog school.
“How was it?” I say.
“It’s graduation next week,” she says. “I hope we don’t get held back.”
“You’re not top of the class?” I say.
“We’re bottom in everything,” she says. “Except eye contact.”
My wife explains that during one exercise she and the dog maintained unbroken eye contact for a solid minute, earning their first and only round of applause from the other trainees. The dog is still staring at my wife an hour later.
“I think she’s the instructor’s favourite,” my wife says. “Obviously, they’re not allowed to say.”
“Did you learn anything else?” I say.
My wife produces a dog treat and commands the dog to lie down. The dog obeys.
“Stay!” my wife shouts. She then parades around the room with the dog treat held above her head. The dog stays put; only its eyes follow my wife.
“Weird,” I say.
Bedtime is less sorted. The dog retreats to its own bed on command, without complaint, seven or eight times a night. But whenever I wake up I find it sleeping across my chest, restricting my breathing. As far as the dog is concerned, it’s obeying my orders to the letter. From my perspective, the dog is never not in my bed.
Anyway, the point of dog school is to modify the dog’s behaviour in public, where its outgoing nature can sometimes lead to breaches of protocol. To that end, my wife has been supplied with a high-pitched dog whistle to improve the dog’s recall. If nothing else, we can add it to the long list of noises the dog is afraid of.
My wife blows the whistle; the dog ducks its head and retreats to the other side of the room.
“Two short toots,” she says. “Everyone has to have their own signal so you don’t get mixed up.”
“She’s supposed to come, and it makes her run away,” I say.
“She’ll get used to it,” she says.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t use a whistle in public,” I say.
“Why not?” she says.
“Because of how it will make me seem,” I say. “Anyway, I can already whistle.”
Some days later we are on a long, flat beach at low tide. It’s one of those still, sunny days when the beach is nicer in winter than it often is in the summer. Everyone present is either a dog owner or a dog.
The dog runs up and down the beach, kicking up sand. If she gets too far ahead or behind, my wife calls and the dog comes running.
“She’s much better these days,” she says.
“I guess this sort of thing is the test,” I say.
I throw the dog’s ball, repeatedly. The dog runs after it and either brings it back or tries to bury it, depending.
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“Bring it here!” I shout. The dog wanders over and sits in front of me with the ball in its mouth.
“You need to drop it or I’m not throwing it,” I say. The dog looks up at me.
“Fine,” I say. “We absolutely do not have to …”
Something has caught the dog’s eye, she turns and looks down the beach. I turn in the same direction and see a woman in the distance throwing a ball for two border collies.
“No,” I say. “That’s their game. You have your own ball.”
The dog stares. The ball drops from her mouth, bouncing once on the sand.
“Don’t even think about …”
The dog is gone, sprinting toward the collies. I put two fingers in my mouth and whistle loudly, to no end.
“It’s like a switch in her head,” my wife says.
“She’d rather steal a ball than own a ball,” I say.
As we’re trudging across the sand in that direction, I see the woman hold up a finger. Our dog sits down in front of her. Then lays down.
“Look,” I say. “She’s obeying that woman.” The woman lifts her arm, and the dog rises back to the sitting position, all the while maintaining eye contact. The two border collies exchange worried glances.
“Sorry,” my wife says, clipping the lead to the dog’s collar.
“She’s very good at taking orders!” the woman says.
This happens all the way along the beach: the dog keeps running up to strangers and begging to be commanded. Some people oblige; some people don’t get it.
“I don’t get it,” I say.
“Christ,” my wife says. “We really are gonna get held back.”
