15.4 – Super Canine Freak

At the time of her birthday in May, Julie moved back to the Rusty Bucket Ranch with her dogs.  She didn’t want to talk about what happened between her and Ron, but it was clear there had been a major breakup.  At least she had a better place to stay than the former tree house, which was falling into disrepair because much of the lumber had been scavenged.  Instead, she bought a 1965 Chevy pickup with a camper, similar to the one the Whites rented one summer when Marty was about 10.  He remembered getting stuck on the edge of a cliff as his dad attempted to make a three point turn in the dark, and the rest of the family got out so he could either save the camper or die trying.  Julie’s aluminum abode was considerably older and more dilapidated, but Mike and Marty thought it was exceedingly cool, and hung out with her often, enjoying the closed-in change of scenery (even if it was like lounging inside a storage shed).

Her dogs, Che and Shirelle, joined again with Lobo and Keno to form a neighborhood pack… including Manderbelles, who tagged along as well as she could with her one eye and stubby legs.  Only Monty was missing, and Marty fondly recalled how handsome he had looked, leading the pack with his glossy, black coat.  It was impossible to keep the dogs tied up, because they incited each other to join in a nonstop prison riot of barking.  Instead, the free-roaming pack tormented Rommel and Gertrude, the McAuliffes’ Great Danes.  Lobo was the instigator, with his clever wolf instincts.  Shirelle supplied all the energy.  She was some sort of lab cross; a super-canine freak of nature that defied the laws of physics.  The others simply tried to keep up.  She loved to play, and her athletic prowess was unbelievable, which made for some entertaining activities.  Her favorite game was to fetch and return anything you could throw.  She simply wouldn’t stop!  Whether it was a ball, a Frisbee, or just a plain old stick, she would expend maximum effort every time you threw it – no matter where it was thrown – in order to retrieve it as quickly as possible and deliver it back to your feet so you could throw it again.  Over and over again – until she died – or so it would seem, if you let her continue.  She was absolutely heedless of injury.  She also fetched garden tools, scraps of lumber, and fishing floats if you threw them with enough enthusiasm.  Lobo and Keno couldn’t keep up, and eventually they just stood and watched, taking a couple of steps with each throw… as if they could actually get that stick if they wanted to!  Manderbelles didn’t even try, preferring to run in circles and bark until Julie shut her inside the camper.

Che was more refined and cautious.  He whined anxiously when Mike and Marty played with Shirelle, but rarely joined in.  His objective was to sneak in and grab the ball, or stick, and keep it away from everyone.  He’d prance around with it in his mouth, pantomiming a circus dog, and making a big show out of the fact that yes, he actually had the ball!  Shirelle eventually stole it back, and the game would continue.  One time Marty threw a forked stick high in the air, and it got caught in the branches of a willow tree.  Shirelle shot up the embankment, clambered up the side of the tree trunk without breaking stride, and maneuvered out as far as she could on a branch before leaping into midair and grabbing the stick in her jaws.  It was a 10 foot drop, and they gasped in a mixture of horror and amazement as she swung, suspended in the air with her jaws clamped on that stick, twisting and jerking her body to try and pull it free.  After a few seconds it tore loose, and incredibly like a cat, she looked down at the ground, rotated her body, and landed on all four feet with the stick in her mouth!  Immediately she ran over and deposited it at Marty’s feet, with a foot and a half of tongue hanging out of her mouth.  “That was fun!  Throw it again!” her cartoon face was imploring, as she danced around him impatiently.

Mike and Marty looked at each other with eyebrows raised in speculative appreciation, wordlessly communicating the possibilities.  They found their old Frisbee and began playing catch about 20 yards apart, with Shirelle as the monkey in the middle.  At first she stayed in the center, and tried to jump and snatch it as it floated by; to no avail.  She changed her strategy as they backed up to the maximum length of the driveway – about 80 yards.  When she saw the Frisbee coming she turned and ran, letting it pass her shoulder, and with her incredible speed she tracked it down before it got caught.  She could go from zero to 25 miles per hour in about 6 strides.  “She must be part greyhound,” Marty laughed to Julie, who was taking pictures of the performance with her new camera, and she nodded agreeably with considerable pride.  They tried throwing the Frisbee harder, and farther, and most of the time she snagged it.  She was getting too good.  Mike unleashed a massive toss that sailed over Marty’s head, and Shirelle watched intently as the bright red Frisbee floated all the way down to the house and landed on the roof.  Game over.  Shirelle whined and tore down the bank through the bushes, looking up at the roof with obsessive anxiety.

Laughing and lauding her skills, they went into the house to make lunch and find a treat for her.  There was a leftover ham bone from some soup Marge had made, and they took it out to the deck to praise her and get some revenge on Che for playing keep-away.  Incredibly, there was Shirelle on the front steps, with the red Frisbee in her mouth!  She quickly dropped it at their feet and scampered back a few steps, trembling in anticipation of the next throw.

Stunned, Mike gaped at Marty open-mouthed, and said what they both were thinking: “No way!”  They raced around to the back of the house to see how she had gotten up on the roof.  The last time Marty swept off the redwood duff, he had left the extension ladder leaning up against the eaves, and Shirelle must have climbed up it!  Or she levitated, he mused, watching her bristle with impatience because he had the plastic disc in his hand but wasn’t throwing it.  His hypothesis must be tested.  He tossed the Frisbee back up on the roof, and the amazing dog immediately scrambled up the ladder like an acrobat – without missing a rung – and pounced on the disc, almost before it stopped moving.  She scrambled across the peaked ridge to the side of the house next to the embankment, and jumped the eight feet lithely, hitting the slope running, and hustled over to where they stood, jaws hanging, and dropped it at their feet.  “Come on!  That was awesome!  Throw it!”  She performed a hummingbird dance from side to side, and wagged her propeller tail madly.  To avoid injury, they took the ladder away and tossed the Frisbee on the roof again, to see if perhaps she could climb walls, but this time the game was truly over.  She ignored the ham bone, circling anxiously around the house and yipping for the rest of the afternoon.  Che helped himself to her treat, and gnawed on the bone contentedly all afternoon, as Shirelle wore a circular path in the duff around the house.

As far as anyone could tell, Shirelle was never harmed, or even sore from any of this intense activity.  She only grew happier and stronger the more Mike and Marty challenged her.  So they played with her a lot, taking her upstream to the McAuliffes’ after the dam was raised, when the creek was deep and green beneath the bridge.  Lobo and Keno stayed behind because they didn’t get along with Rommel, and he was too big to argue with.  Shirelle carried her favorite stick like a battle axe, and the Great Dane took two steps backwards, not knowing what to think.  Mike tossed the thick branch a couple of times from the bridge into the bushes as a warm-up, and then aimed for the water to see what the canine commando would do.  Ker-splash!  She never hesitated, but flung herself off the bridge with athletic gusto.  Marty expected to see her perform a perfect double-flip with a half-twist, leaving a tiny riffle, but she flailed as if she was swimming in midair, and splashed into the water with her paws already churning.  Her head quickly popped out of the water like a cork, and her powerful shoulders raised up from the force of her paddling.  The instant replays confirmed she had set a new world record for the 50 meter stick fetch.

Over and over, she brought the stick back to them as swiftly as possible, and before the water was finished draining from her back, they tossed it in again.  She was improving her technique; besting her own time several leaps in succession.  Rommel harrumphed in indignation that she was doing something he couldn’t do, but Shirelle ignored him completely, and that just made him madder.  He paced apprehensively in utter impotence as the acrobatic dog soared through the air farther and farther, getting a running jump so she wouldn’t have to swim so far.  She anticipated the throws and leapt far off the platform, at the same instant Mike released the stick, and actually tried to intercept it before it hit the water!  That dog was seriously obsessive compulsive, but she had the skills to make her passion a reality.  By now, Rommel was resigned to lying in the shade with Gertrude, wondering how the hell he had lost his mojo.  Shirelle had the heart of a champion, and was enthusiastic also in her affection, after the people settled down and ceased hurling objects.  Eventually she’d circle seven times with her nose down, then recline and go into pause mode: not really sleeping, but recharging and waiting.  If someone merely tossed away a bottle cap, she’d raise her head alertly to see if the game was on again.

Mike and Marty always had to be aware of her manic tendencies, and when they really wanted to focus on an athletic game – like tossing a football or playing pepper in the driveway, they’d have to chain her to a tree because she’d tear up the inside of Julie’s camper or the house trying to get out.  One time she broke free, actually snapping the chain, and before they knew it, she lunged from the bushes to grab the baseball, just as Marty was taking a swing at it.  The bat hit her in the jaw and broke a tooth, but she still got the ball and urged him to throw it again, even as the blood trickled from mouth.  Of course he and Mike felt terrible, and they stopped and tried to check her mouth, but she was only interested in the ball.  She appeared to be okay, but Marty stuck the ball in her mouth and took her to Dr. Killdeer’s all the same, where she got a couple of stitches in her cheek.  That was the first time she ever got hurt, and from then on they had to be more careful.  Now they knew without a doubt, she was completely oblivious to danger in pursuit of a thrown object.  If Marty stood on the Golden Gate Bridge and tossed a stick, he was 100% certain she would leap right over the side.  She’d probably catch that damn stick before it hit the water, too, like Rocky the Flying Squirrel!

Meanwhile, Otter and Rabbit were still living at their friend’s apartment.  They visited often for meals and parties, but they had retired unceremoniously from the wigwam life, because as Rabbit put it succinctly, “Bathrooms are a good thing.”  Otter was drinking more heavily than ever, and expressed a great sadness about not being able to afford his regular “fishing trips,” which Marty suspected were a sort of spiritual retreat for him.  They were hard up since Rabbit was laid off from her job as a seamstress, but as usual, there was always money for beer and cigarettes.

“Don’t sell your life for money, boy,” he advised Marty’s left shoulder one day, squinting through bloodshot eyes and trying to focus on his face.  The old Inuit took a final swig and stared longingly at the whiskey bottle for a long time, as if there was nothing worse in this life than emptiness.

Cash money was always in short supply around the Rusty Bucket, and they traded or helped themselves to the pile of donations that collected in the parking lot of Cala market in Fairfax.  Marty found a few good books that way, too.  “Take a little, leave a little,” was the unofficial motto, and lots of folks used that unofficial venue to trade stuff that was too good to throw away, but not good enough to sell.  They even saw some wicker baskets reappear, still making the rounds after Marge had donated them weeks before.

Julie took the camper off the back of her truck when the mud in the driveway firmed up a little.  Some parts of the property didn’t get dry until June, but the open driveway got a little sun.  She jacked that contraption up on stilts, and drove the truck right out from under it.  Mike and Marty helped her build a platform “deck” and a ramp up to her door, with the remaining lumber from the ruins of the tree house.  It had all the tacky charm of a tiny aluminum mobile home in the woods, as if an odd family of robot gnomes lived inside.  But it was just Julie and the dogs, crammed in amongst all her stuff like mice in a tool box.

As the weather got warmer and the sun climbed above the high ridges of the canyon, Marge came home with a flyer someone had left at the pet store about the “First Inaugural Canine Olympics” at the local Humane Society.  They naturally thought of Shirelle, and wondered if they could get a track uniform that fit her.  There would be events for fetching (ha!), running (no competition), obedience (well, maybe not so great), and an obstacle course (piece of cake).  Julie was one of the first to sign up, and when she became enthusiastic about something, everyone else had to hear about it.  She got most of their neighbors to enter their dogs, too, and they all planned to form a rooting section on the big day.  Julie drove Che and Shirelle out to the school’s athletic field every night after work, and tried to train them properly.  The problem was, as soon as Shirelle saw a ball or a Frisbee, she could think of nothing else, and discipline was of no concern whatsoever.  Julie could only hope the obedience event would be first.

When the day came, Marty drove Lobo and Keno in the back of the Apollo, and joined the opening ceremonies.  In those days, you could just tie your dog in the back of a pickup truck and hurtle down a highway at 60 miles per hour, no problem.  When they got to the Humane Society’s parking lot, it looked like a dog convention had broken out.  There were pickup trucks full of dogs, station wagons full of dogs, dogs chasing dogs, and some poor lady with a megaphone was trying in vain to impose her will on the canine chaos.  The general movement of the mob flowed to the back of the complex, where they had an elaborate training facility set up.  With great difficulty, the observers separated themselves and formed an impromptu grandstand, while participating dogs and owners checked in and got a number to wear on their collar and arm, respectively.  Julie had also entered Che in the obedience event, and he wore his number proudly, but not exactly knowing why.  The non-participating dogs, including Lobo and Keno, had to be taken back to the parking lot because of their distracting exuberance.  Marty put them in the cab with the windows rolled down a crack, knowing what would happen if he tried to tie them in the back and walk away.  When he returned, the games were about to begin.  The atmosphere was festive and expectant, with a thinly disguised undercurrent of competition.

The events were scheduled in the order they were listed on the flyer: fetching, running, obedience, and obstacle course.  The athletes were divided into classes by weight, to make it fair for all the little pooches.  Shirelle’s group had twelve participants, ranging from an Australian Shepherd to a Great Dane (who happened to be Rommel, handled by their neighbor, Hillie).  The official Olympic object to be thrown and fetched was a Frisbee, no doubt due to its resemblance to a discus.  The disc had to cross a line about fifty yards away, but if you threw it too far, your dog would have a slower time.  Marty was extremely accurate throwing just about anything, so Julie gave him her armband for the event.  Shirelle was near the end of the group, and after a few sprightly contestants had their day in the sun, prancing out to fetch the Frisbee and returning it to their owners with tails wagging, Shirelle was practically coming out of her skin.  Marty made a perfect toss, and she exploded as if shot out of a cannon, and chased it down from behind before it got halfway; deftly snatching it from midair.  The crowd murmured, “What is this?” and the little kids stood up to see better.  Participants got only three throws to log their best time, so the next ones had to be better.

Marty changed his arm angle to hurl it low and far, with enough speed to stay ahead of that runaway freight train of a dog that was determined to catch it before it hit the grass!  This time she pounced on it a few yards before the line, and carved out chunks of turf as she immediately reversed her momentum to return it to him as quickly as possible so he could throw it again.  He only had one throw left, so he had to toss it even farther to be safe.  She whined and yipped while she was tearing after that Frisbee, with her legs whirling like lawnmower blades, and throwing up a rooster tail of grass, but she couldn’t catch up to it until it was ten yards past the line!  Marty could see the corded muscles in her thighs bunching up as she defied the laws of physics to change direction, race back, and drop it at his feet.  The crowd burst into spontaneous applause, and some even gave her a standing ovation.  Twelve point two seconds!  No other dog recorded a time under 20 seconds, so Shirelle won the gold medal easily!  Her trainers and coaching staff exchanged high fives all around.

Next was the running event, and once again Shirelle blew away the competition by a wide margin.  She simply functioned at a completely different level of energy than the other dogs.  There were plenty of the hyper sort who could spring in the air, or run low and hard like a sheepdog, but there was only one super-canine freak of nature on the field that day.  She hurtled through the air as if she came from a planet with much heavier gravity.  They lined up the dogs at one end of the grass, and the owners at the other, and all chaos was about to break loose.  The whistle blew, and Shirelle bolted from the line like a greyhound after a mechanical rabbit.  Some of the dogs simply tried to stay out of her way, while others ran around looking for their owners.  Julie was discreetly holding the Frisbee in her hand, but of course Shirelle saw it, and she burned a smoking straight line through the turf in 15 seconds flat.  Another gold medal!  People were starting to take pictures of her, but by now, all she wanted was that Frisbee!

Unfortunately, Julie’s strategy backfired, because once Shirelle saw the Frisbee it simply had to be thrown as soon as possible or she would die, and the obedience event was next!  But it would have been worse to throw it, because it would just feed her obsession.  So Julie passed behind Marty, and stuffed it up the back of his shirt.  Shirelle was going nuts because she didn’t know where it was, and she was due to go second.  The object of the event was to make your dog sit, and then you’d walk away, and see how far you could get before the dog moved from its spot… even one step.  This was not going to go well for Shirelle, who couldn’t stop searching for the missing Frisbee, and had no intention of sitting in one place for even a millisecond.  As soon as Julie released her collar she’d bound away, leaping high to try and catch a glimpse of red plastic somewhere in the crowd.  She came in last.  Che fared much better, sitting stoically like a movie poster of a heroic dog, but he predictably got nervous with so many people around and his dearest friend moving farther away, and what if she was actually leaving?  He came in fifth place, and got a biscuit.

The last event was the obstacle course, which was composed of a predictable assortment of ramps and barriers that one might expect.  Owners had to run next to their dogs this time, which was going to be a problem for Shirelle, because she never followed anyone – she ran circles around them.  None of the other dogs were doing too well, either, as they were easily confused by the unfamiliar obstacles.  It was most amusing to watch some of the out-of-shape owners trying to encourage their clueless dogs by demonstrating proper obstacle course technique.  A couple of them fell down, and the crowd fluttered with politely suppressed laughter.  Then a guy with a border collie used a long, thin stick to guide his bitch, and she did a terrific job, and they both got a hearty round of applause.  Shirelle was due to go last, and Julie was trying to calm her down by holding a bandana over her eyes, but it wasn’t working.  It would take hours for her to forget about the Frisbee.

Marty reasoned, if that guy could use a stick, they could use something too, so he ran to his truck with the Frisbee and got his fishing pole.  Dodging Lobo and Keno, who were beside themselves with jealousy, he punched a quick hole in the plastic disc with his pen knife, and tied the fishing line to it (without a hook – duh).  He ran back just in time to explain his plan to Julie, and she got it right away, and exactly on cue, as the megaphone lady announced Shirelle, and the crowd hushed in eager anticipation.  By this time Shirelle had noticed the reappearance of the Frisbee, and it was all Marty could do to hold her collar while Julie let out a little line so it would dangle, and then the whistle blew!  All Julie had to do was run as fast as she could along the edge of the course, and Shirelle paid no mind to whatever random junk was in her way.  Ramps, barriers, poles, and barrels all went flying as she crashed through them heedlessly, like the proverbial bull in a china shop.  She beat that Border Collie’s time by 10 seconds, and the crowd couldn’t stop laughing!  The collie’s owner was complaining to the judges, but they were beside themselves and waving him off, applauding the undeniable celebrity of the day.  Shirelle was going out of her mind, because there was so much energy being expended, and nobody was throwing the Frisbee!  She carried it in her mouth in hopeful confusion, dragging the fishing pole behind her, as paparazzi flash bulbs went off all around.

Her picture was in the local paper the next day as a human interest story, with three gold medals around her neck and the beat-up Frisbee hanging out of her mouth.  Her wrinkled brow accentuated the frustrated expression on her face as if to say, “Isn’t anybody going to throw this damn thing?!”