As I approached the Snider Agricultural Arena Saturday afternoon, the first things I noticed were a lot of yellow snow, and bumper stickers and window clings adorning just about every car in the parking lot. They said things like, "I (heart) My Shih Tzu" and "Greyhounds on Board."
It became quickly apparent that hundreds of dog people had descended on State College for the Mount Nittany Dog Training Club AKC agility trial, which was held all weekend. It occurred to me that I might find some interesting and unusual people there. I was right.
An agility trial basically consists of a big obstacle course for dogs, featuring jumps, a series of poles for the dog to weave around, a big tunnel and so on. The competing canine is timed and observed for the proper completion of each obstacle in a specific order. The dog's handler runs alongside the whole time, shouting out commands and providing guidance. To be honest, I found it pretty amusing.
After watching the actual competition for a little while, I turned my attention to the dog people who were watching and waiting for their own turn in the ring.
Let explain what I mean when I say "dog people." I use this name to separate them from your average dog owners, people who have pet dogs, as opposed to people who have made the joy owning and caring for dogs the definition of their very lives.
Classic, middle-aged woman sweatshirts embroidered with pictures of various breeds of dog were everywhere. I saw a lady with a Dalmatian on her turtleneck.
While wandering around, I met a woman named Elise Maylott, who runs a dog-training center in Leesburg, Va., and has been involved with dogs for nearly 30 years. She told me about training techniques and her own background in the field.
Most interesting, I thought, was her experience with training animals other than dogs. She once attended a five-day seminar, during which she successfully trained a chicken to do figure eights around a series of pylons.
Apparently, with the know-how and a lot of patience, just about any animal can be trained to some extent. In fact, Elise said cats can be trained for agility trials as well, and she told me to check out "cat agility" on the Internet, which I did as soon as I got home. It is adorable. I highly recommend Googling it, especially if you're intrigued by pictures of cat people luring their felines around obstacles and over jumps with feather dusters and the classic stuffed mouse on a string.
Next to a vendor of things like dog-related apparel and the aforementioned bumper stickers, I found a woman who specializes in therapeutic massage for dogs and their owners. Her name is Linda Arble, and as I watched her rub down a Tibetan spaniel named Willa, she told me about dog massage.
She said all living things posses a powerful energy field that emanates from the body. The purpose of her massage is to manipulate that energy field and restore balance to the dog whose owner pays her $10 for a 10-minute session. To learn her trade, she attended courses at the PetMassage Institute in Toledo, Ohio.
During the massage, Arble told Willa's owner, Karen Chamberlain, that the dog had "very good energy" and remarked that she didn't get "stuck" in Willa's energy field even once. I'm really not sure what this meant.
Trying to explain the power of this energy field, Arble told me about a particularly memorable massage she gave to a Doberman several years ago. About halfway through the session, she said she began to weep uncontrollably.
When she asked the dog's owner if anything traumatic had happened recently, she was informed that the dog's "best friend" (also a dog) had been hit and killed by a car recently. I don't really know what to think of this story, but I figured it was worth retelling.
After witnessing my first dog massage, I decided to leave. It had been a long day, and the $1.50 chicken patty sandwich I had gotten from the concession stand wasn't sitting very well.
As I drove home, I reflected about dog people. I decided that while they may be odd, their passion is admirable and fascinating. After all, everyone needs a hobby, so why not get really into training dogs, cats or chickens to run obstacle courses? God bless America.
