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Wicklowe's Silver Knight CD My First Show Collie
I was 14. I was dog crazy, no, more correctly, animal crazy. My family drove to Pittsburgh
and brought home a leggy, gangly 6 month old speckled face Collie named Arf. Arf and I started showing, earned an obedience
title, Companion Dog, and then in Conformation we won a Group 2 and then the next day a Group 1 from the Working Group. We
were a team. It was the beginning.
Little known fact: Donlyn's Tar
n'Feathers winning the 6-9 Puppy Bitch AOC class at the CCA National Specialty in Columbus, Ohio, March 18, 1966. Judge was Nicholos Maravolo and she was handled by
your truly. It was my first National Specialty. She was later bred to Glen Knolls Knightswood Sky. Talk about Ancient History!
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It’s tough owning a breed of dog with such a tremendous amount of baggage
trailing behind it. Especially if the dog looks like Lassie. We drove 6 hours north and west to Murrysville, Pennsylvania. I’d been there a few weeks before looking at a litter of puppies. One stood out, but the breeders
were still deciding who they wanted to keep. I was determined that one sable and
white male would be mine. I called frequently. “I’m still interested in that puppy,”
I reminded them. Perry came home with us. He was our one and only then. My memories of him are like scenes in
a movie. Perry at home, Perry at shows, Perry traveling; little moments in time that accumulate into the story of our life together. Like when
I brought a kitten home. Perry became obsessed. He would follow the kitten around the house, his nose within an inch of her at
all times. He terrified her; mouthing her head, and stare at her for hours. I would yell at him, try to protect the kitten, worry that I would find it dead, her neck
snapped by my kitten- obsessed dog. Like the kitten, I’d misread
his intentions. He loved Towhee, he didn’t want to harm her. Eventually he wore Towhee down and won her over. He never lost his passion for
cats, even the ones who hated dogs. They fascinated him, if he saw one
he would run to it and stare at it until
I had to drag him away. He was a kittie junkie, unable to hear or see anything
else in their presence. Perry hated to be left alone. He could handle 2 or 3 hours of loneliness, but if it stretched to 4, he would look
for something to destroy. Indoors it was chairs, tools, ends of furniture; outside
he’d chew hoses, garden appliances, even trees. One time he chewed and pulled up young fruit trees that my husband Joe had just planted. He
always chewed what we touched, what we cared about. It was a compliment
we did not appreciate. Some might interpret it as revenge
or spite, but it was an act of devotion as much as neediness, similar to his love of Towhee; licking her soaking wet, until she could finally get away from him, the fur on
her head matted down flat against her skull
in a doggy saliva goo. It was as if Perry tried to absorb the essence
of things. Perry thought about things too much, especially when we were training for obedience. He would weigh the options;
trying to decide what would please me. Perry never wanted to be wrong,
he was a perfectionist. He was sensitive to criticism. We had a lot in common. We took long walks in a cemetery near our house. It was quiet and beautiful, with stands of old pines overlooking the river. One section was reserved
for deceased pets. We would weave around the stones, and I’d stop
to read what must have felt to the owners like wholly inadequate efforts to convey the grief. Some of the animals lived to be 12, 15, 18 years
old. I wanted Perry to live forever. We flew to Orlando, Florida to be on a game show for dogs called That’s My Dog. He relished every minute of it—the relay race where Joe and I called Perry between
us; me stuffing his legs into a T-shirt, Joe cramming a
sun visor on his head. Perry grinned foolishly and dashed between us
for more. He played to the crowd in the ball-fetching contest. Grabbing a ball out of
the basket, he deliberately dropped it, pick it up again, build suspense until he’d finally
bring it to me. Then bounce another ball long after the buzzer ended
the contest. His magic trick was the coup de grace. With Perry’s eyes blindfolded by a white scarf I tied around
his head, I held up a white sock and announced to the audience that he would find it. Joe set out a half dozen different colored knotted socks in
front of the crowd. One by one Perry worked down the row until he confidently
picked up the right one and brought it to me. The
audience cheered while the judges gave him near perfect scores. In the obstacle contest he climbed the A-Frame, jumped, tunneled, paused, weaved with “this is so easy and
fun” written all over his face. Perry was a star. He loved company. He greeted children with a toy in his mouth and an invitation to throw it for him. Perry considered it his job to be an ambassador
for the breed. Yet he never missed his canine roots, he
had no desire to explore his dogness. He always preferred people. He
had the kind of loyalty dogs get famous for. He never saved my life, or ran in front of a car to spare a child, or barked to alert us of fire. There
never was a kid, a fire, or life-threatening situation. He would have,
though. The very first time he saw sheep, he went to work calmly and deliberately as though he’d done it all his life. He
loved ducks almost as much as he loved cats. He’d lick their heads soppy
wet if they let him. Judges sometimes misunderstood, thinking Perry meant to harm the ducks. They gave us warnings. If they only knew; he’d
follow a duck to the ends of the earth, and at 11 years old effortlessly
earned his Herding Started title. Perry lost his hearing, he got stiff, old, and bone thin. He never, ever stopped being Perry. He
could have been a movie star, gone to Hollywood, made a fortune. The references to Lassie were constant, clichéd, inaccurate. Perry was
better. He was real. |
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