Terrier Terror, page 4
“No. Which is why I decided to wait here until you arrived. We’ve got to get started as soon as possible. I’ll hire you to train him for however-much free time you’ve got available between now and the competition.”
“But the agility trials take place in just four days! Even if I worked with him twenty-four hours a day, he won’t get anywhere close to competition ready! Besides which, you have to register him and get him measured, and all of that takes weeks and weeks!”
“I know someone willing to pull some strings for me. This is just a one-time thing, so it’s not going to ruffle anyone’s feathers. Or fur, as it were.” She grinned. “Hey, that rhymes!”
“But I can’t get Bingley anywhere near even attempting to run the agility course.”
“I know. It’s not like Bingley or I will be crushed when we come in last.”
Tracy gave me a long look. We were close friends, and I enjoyed and liked her, even though she was a real character. Yet she often tried to avail herself of my services. She’d convince herself that doing so was good for my business. Sometimes she was right and gave me invaluable publicity. Other times she just plain exhausted me.
“Honestly, Allie, you worry too much.”
“Why are you entering him in agility? Why not let him come in last in the Beagle conformation instead? He’ll have no idea what his handler wants him to do there either, but at least he’s leash trained. Sort of.”
“Well, I wasn’t going to enter him into any competition, but then Baxter said how he was all busy here trying to handle a batch of kerfuffling Terrier Terrors, and I realized I could get several shows’ worth of stories out of it.”
“Oh, Tracy. Please don’t tell me you’re going to do a Vlog and podcast and make this an enormous deal! You know what a mess that caused the last time you did it at the Pet Expo in Denver!”
She cocked an eyebrow and tapped her chin with her index finger. “Hmm. Are you talking about the show where you and Baxter met, and he turned out to be ‘The One’’? she asked, adding air quotes. “You mean that disaster?”
“Quit with the selective memory, Tracy. You passed out when your dog was bitten by a parrot, and you wound up being accused of murdering Russell’s ex-girlfriend.” The show had taken place almost two years ago, before Russell and I split up. At the time, I was doing my utmost to convince myself that my feelings for Baxter were merely platonic.
“I remember. I just choose to always put the happy memories in the forefront.” She grinned and gave me a playful jab in my shoulder. “You should try that sometime.”
I couldn’t help but smile. We both knew I’d once been advised by the head of the Boulder Police detectives to close my dog-therapy business in order to reduce the murder rate in Boulder.
“Besides, it’s not like Bingley has to balance things on his nose and walk a tightrope. I mean, all he’ll have to do is follow you around the course, and Bingley has been really good at that. Most of the time, I don’t even need a leash, thanks to your training.”
“He’s a Beagle. He is always going to be a Beagle. He’s adorable, but a pill. Secondly, the rules of agility trials dictate that the handler can’t lead him over the obstacles. Or even touch them. Or lure the dog with food or toys. Furthermore, the dogs must run through tunnels...those things that look like oversized clothes-drier attachments. They have to jump over walls, panels, double and triple bars...go over a seesaw, which is scary for a dog. Climb over a bridge. The weave posts are utterly counterintuitive for dogs. Sorry to rain on your parade, but the whole idea is a nonstarter, Tracy.”
She held up her palms. “Okay, okay. I’ll hire you to handle him and to train him.”
“No, Tracy. That’s the exact opposite of what I’m trying to tell you. I already have my hands full with two Terriers. I can’t add Bingley to the mix.”
“Sure, you can. You can fit him into crazy hours that nobody else would presume you’d be open for business.”
“I am not going to work with Bingley at three a.m., Tracy.”
“It’ll be great for your business. He’ll be clickbait. Everyone will want to watch you and Bingley on the obstacle course.”
“I know you’re going to tell me that all publicity is good publicity. But I am not going to make myself look like the world’s worst trainer.”
“Nor should you. I’m going to narrate and explain that I only gave you a few days to do this, and you only agreed to do this because we’re friends, and because we wanted to publicize the dog show, and...drum up support. We wanted to demonstrate to folks who’ve never seen agility races just how hard this competition really is.” She spread her arms. “I mean, I’m proof of that right there. I thought it would be a breeze.”
“No, Tracy.”
“Don’t make me play my you-owe-me-one card,” she said, putting her hands on her hips.
“Arggh.” I snatched up my wallet from my dog-trainer travel pouch (otherwise known as a fanny pack, but it was way too pricey to be called that). “Fine. Here’s a card of someone who works with newbie agility training. Use her, and I’ll try to work with him in addition.”
“Awesome. You won’t regret this, Allie. I promise your business will expand from all the notoriety you’ll get from the funny videos that audience members will post.” She started to walk away.
“I didn’t agree to show him in the agility trial.”
“But you will.” She turned and stepped closer to me. She studied my eyes, a sadness in her own. “Allie, come on,” she said gently. “The lawsuit still hasn’t been settled, right?”
I shook my head.
“I know how much you guys must need money. We both know Bingley’s antics are going to be hilarious in the video, and the audience will love it. Let me do this one little thing for you.”
She had made a good point. Then again, there were so many possible problems. “What if it backfires? And I wind up looking like a complete incompetent?”
“It won’t backfire. I won’t let it.”
I shut my eyes for a moment. “Baxter and I called a moratorium on discussing the stupid lawsuit. It’s not like we’re desperate. We’re just getting a little strapped for cash. That’s the real reason he leapt at this assignment.”
“And we’re going to make lemonade from the lemons. We’ll get a YouTube out of it that will make viewers laugh, and you’ll look great in it.” She gave me a nice hug. She grabbed my shoulders afterward and said, “I’ll splice in shots of you working with one of the Terriers as well as my Beagle boy and generate some free publicity. What can go wrong?”
“That’s exactly what you said about my business plan with the combination dog kennel/training business.”
She shrugged. “We didn’t predict a new housing development springing up at your property line. And some crazy cat ladies moving into them. But this time I’m right. Law of averages.”
Once again she turned and called, “Toodles” over her shoulder. I watched her walk away. By ‘crazy cat ladies,’ Tracy was referring to the houses built in the former cornfield that abutted our property line, right next to our barn, which we had converted into a kennel and dog-training facility. Six of the new families owned cats, and two of those families insisted that their cats had a right to be allowed to roam freely; there was no way to keep an outdoor cat within a fence.
The cats quickly discovered that they could tease the dogs enclosed in the kennel by climbing onto the windowsills at night and slipping into the building whenever the doors were open during the day. Unbeknownst to us, one of the free-roaming cats got shut inside of the barn one night.
In the wee hours the next morning, a panicked woman came over and pounded on our door, promptly greeting us with the accusations that our dogs must have eaten her cat. Baxter immediately countered that, because our dogs were in our house or in their kennels in the barn, the cat must have been eaten by coyotes. That was not one of his more sensitive moments. The woman went ballistic. I pointed out that the cats loved to slip inside the building and suggested we try there. We marched over to the barn, Baxter opened the door, and her cat bolted out the door and back to her home. We promised we would thoroughly check the barn for trespassing cats from then on. Even so, a finger-pointing argument ensued.
Baxter and I believed cooler heads would prevail in another day or two. Instead, a few weeks later, we got a visit from a government official for possible land-use violations. They had received a flurry of complaints about our dog-kennel business, along with a petition signed by every resident in the new development. As it turns out, Baxter and I had been granted the right to use my property for training dogs and as a “kennel,” but the new homeowners claimed that was not the same as an “animal boarder,” and therefore we were operating an illegal “dog ranch.”
Tracy sincerely wanted to help us financially by entering a dog that would often not sit or stay into a competition that required the mastery of astonishingly complex tricks. She had a big heart. Meanwhile, all I would need to add to her video was a nice pratfall while I buried my pride. And probably my career.
Chapter 5
Baxter was talking on the phone as I shut his office door behind me. From his end of the conversation, I gathered that the caller was trying to coax Baxter into giving a money-back guarantee for all six of her male dogs, should another dog-in-heat incident occur this year. Demonstrating his annoyance, he rolled his eyes as he negotiated the caller down to returning the admission fee for one dog, should her highest-ranking dog’s reputation be tainted somehow. I quietly took a seat, noting the lack of windows or a single spot of color or interest in the space. The metal desk, filing cabinet, and chair frames seemed to be circa 1980s or so. Finally the conversation ended. He smiled at me.
“Hi, sweetheart. Cooper Hayes is still a no-show. Apparently nobody has seen him since his firing-slash-resignation from my current position.”
“It doesn’t look like you’re having all that great of a time in the job,” I noted.
“Yeah. It pretty much consists of handling current complaints while trying to prevent future complaints. According to Kiki, they’d downplayed Cooper’s release from his salaried position by telling him that they needed him too much as the go-to guy for dog owners who needed to hire a presenter for their dogs. They told him they blamed the lower numbers of registrations on being unable to give their usual spiel about him being for hire at a reasonable price.”
“He’s certainly better-suited for that role. Cooper stops and chats with me whenever we bump into each other at dog shows. He strikes me as one of the gentlest, least-ambitious men I know. But maybe he was hurt even so and just decided to take a vacation, or something.”
“Maybe he’s pining away in a cabana on a Mexican beach.” He sighed. “So you’ll meet Waxy soon. His owner’s name is Gregory. There are two other Terrier owners who declined Cooper’s offer to bring in their dogs this afternoon. I called and left messages about Cooper not being available today, just so I could stay ahead of things.” He handed me a slip of paper. “Here’s their names and contact info.”
I glanced at the two names under Gregory’s. Neither rang any bells. “Did you give them my number as his substitute?”
“I said words to that effect. It’d be great if you could call them and introduce yourself and assure them plus Greg you’re ready to fill in for Cooper if he can’t show their dogs. You should probably add something like: ‘despite our expectations that he will indeed be here.’ There’s a fourth owner that Kiki said she was speaking to, but she didn’t—”
He broke off as Kiki Miller popped her head in the office doorway. “Hi, Allida.” She seemed a tad annoyed at my being here. Terrington Leach, looking resplendent in his tailored suit, stepped into the doorway beside her. Terrington was the exact opposite of Cooper. He was a dog hander for the stars, showing at Westminster and other prestigious shows. She grinned at him. “You’ve met Allie Babcock before, haven’t you, Terrington?”
“No, I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure,” he replied, smiling slowly and giving me a head-to-foot visual examination.
“We met at the show in Denver last spring.”
“Really?” He stared into my eyes. “I so rarely forget a pretty face.” He winked at me.
“I must have been having a bad-face day. That happens sometimes. When I don’t get enough sleep.”
“Allida...did you say your name was?”
Baxter cleared his throat. “Actually that’s what Kiki said her name was, and it still is.”
Baxter was not the jealous type, but his arms were crossed, and though his voice had been amiable, he was clearly annoyed at how Terrington was ogling me.
“Sorry, hon,” Baxter told me, “but Kiki and I have a meeting scheduled.” He held out his hand to Terrington, saying, “Nice to meet you.”
“You, too. As Kiki was likely about to tell you, we’ll be seeing a lot of each other. I’m showing a future prize-winner in the Terrier class. Plus one in the Toy, Sporting, and Non-sporting classes. I’m guaranteed to have the Best in Show.”
Baxter gave him a nice smile and a nod, but I knew him well enough to be certain he found Terrington’s boundless ego galling. Baxter shifted his gaze to me. “Lunch in an hour?”
“Sure thing.”
I strode out the door, and Terrington followed, shutting the door behind us. A familiar-looking woman strode toward me. She was attractive, in her forties or so, but her wrinkles were permanent scowl lines. Terrington, meanwhile, put his hand on the small of my back. I whirled around, ready to karate chop his arm.
“Aha!” he said, grinning. “Most people call you Allie, right?”
“My friends do,” I replied. I glanced at the woman who’d stopped next to me. She was glowering at Terrington.
“I knew it,” Terrington continued. “I do remember you. And speaking of lovely women, this is my dear friend, Marsala Podna-something.”
“Podnowski,” Marsala growled. “That’s my ex-husband’s name, and I haven’t gotten around to changing it. No thanks to my dear friend, Terrington.”
“No thanks necessary,” he said in a rather odd non-sequitur. “Allie here is handling Jesse’s and Valerie’s Terriers in the agility trials this year. Marsala breeds Bull Terriers.” He winked at me. “I’ve been hoping she’ll breed them to Shih Tzu, and make a crossbreed called Bull Shihtz.”
He laughed merrily, but I’d heard that joke a dozen times. Marsala clenched her fists as if she wanted to punch his face.
“I remember you and your dog from last year’s show. She was judged the best Bull Terrier and was in solid contention for Best Terrier.”
“Yes, I have two lines of Bull Terriers with blue ribbons on both sides,” she answered. “To be honest, I truly thought Chardonnay was the Best-in-Class last year. With Valerie now competing again this year, I very much doubt there will be impartial judging this time either.”
“Oh, come on, Marsala,” Terrington said. “You don’t seriously believe Valerie’s dogs have a chance. I’m not even presenting them this year! Furthermore, the judges all know she led the boycott that was responsible for the low enrollment. That’s like entering a beauty pageant with a big black eye.”
I wondered if his last statement was true. I honestly didn’t know how Valerie’s actions to date would affect the judging.
“Oh, Bull Shih Tzu!” Marsala snarled. “The judges are going to be cowed by her, just like always.”
“It’s Jesse’s rookie Airedale, Eeyore, that will be hard to beat,” Terrington said. He grinned at me. “I’m handling—”
“Jesse is enrolling a dog in conformation?” I interrupted. “I talked to him just yesterday. He was leaning toward not entering at that time.”
“He changed his mind this morning. He called me and begged me to show Eeyore.” He rolled his eyes. “Just a terrible name for a prized dog. Better than Dog Face, at least. In any case, Eeyore is going to be a very tough dog to beat. Especially since I’m his handler. I wouldn’t want to bet against us.”
Marsala glared at him with unmasked contempt.
He lifted his palms in response. “I’m just saying.”
“You’ve been ‘saying’ too much of nothing,” Marsala snapped. “I’d like to hear what Allie has to say about the elephant in the room.”
Terrington scanned our surroundings. “The St. Bernard?”
She clicked her tongue. “No, the conflict between Jesse and Valerie. One of them is lying about what happened, obviously. Allie, you’ve worked with both of them. Which one do you suspect?”
This was precisely the topic I’d been actively trying to avoid. Then again, I’d refused to give my opinion for a year now. Maybe my reticence was why it kept coming up again and again. “Frankly, I’m not convinced that either of them is lying. It could have been an honest mistake on the part of an inexperienced helper, who brought a dog in heat to the show. And it doesn’t seem at all unreasonable to conclude that the dogs jiggled their crates closer, or someone other than Jesse pushed the two cages together. Such as someone who wanted to create a feud between two first-rate Terrier breeders.”
“To get them both disqualified, you mean?” Marsala asked.
“Yes. That’s almost exactly what wound up happening, after all. In any case, I think we’d all be best served to take both of them at their word and let...sleeping dogs lie.”
Terrington chuckled. “I doubt that’s going to happen any time soon. Those two are far more likely to fight tooth and nail than to let go of their bone of contention.”
“Maybe so. But the rest of us can,” I replied.
Terrington merely smirked at me.
“I need to get to work,” I said. “I’m supposed to take a dog named Waxy on a stroll around the ring. It was nice meeting both of you.”
Marsala’s eyes widened. I assumed she’d recognized the name of a Bull Terrier. “I need to have a word in private with you, actually,” Marsala said. “It will just take a moment.” She crossed her arms and glared at Terrington. “It was nice seeing you again, Terry.”
