Be A Clown, Be A Clown
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All The World Loves A Clown
by Chris Robinson
In 1948, Metro Goldwyn Mayer released a musical romance starring Gene Kelly and Judy Garland titled “The Pirate.” Among the songs written for this musical by the late, great American songwriter Cole Porter (“Anything Goes,” “In the Still of the Night,” “Begin the Beguine” etc. etc.) was a ditty titled “Be a Clown” in which Kelly twice, the second time with Garland, extolled the virtues of a clown’s life (“Wear the cap and the bells and you’ll rate with all the great swells.”)
A significant number of dogs, including several of my own, appear to have taken Porter’s lyrics to heart. Their antics have entertained and delighted judges, marshals, ring stewards and galleries at hunt tests, field trials, obedience trials, agility trials and rally events. Everyone, it seems, except the hapless individual paying their entry fees.
Once one of my dogs, who was a conformation champion and group winner and ultimately earned both a UD and a senior hunter title, had the entire gallery in hysterics and even the judge laughing while competing in utility. In the directed jumping exercise, he barreled down the mat toward the high jump like American Pharoah coming through the homestretch in last fall’s Breeders’ Cup Classic. There was absolutely no way he wasn’t going to clear the jump. But, a step or two before the jump, like a reining horse on a slide stop, he hit the brakes. I waited and waited and waited. Finally, he slowly peeked around the side of the jump with a very sly look on his face. The gallery started laughing. The judge made a slight move in his direction and he quickly ducked back of the jump. Then, slowly, he peeked around the other side of the jump with the same sly look. The gallery laughed even harder. The judge again made a slight twitch in his direction. Same result. He instantly ducked behind the jump. This game of peek-a-boo went on for an eternity and maybe even longer before he finally decided he had whipped the gallery into a laughter frenzy and it was unlikely he’d be able to extract any higher level of laughter from them. Then from a standing stop only a foot or two from the jump, he easily cleared the maximum allowable height with a good foot to spare and galloped down the mat to me. When we finished the utility exercises, the gallery was still laughing at his performance and as we exited the ring, there was a loud round of applause. I would swear, under oath, that the dog pranced and bowed to the gallery all the way out of the ring.
Judy Super has a wonderful OTCH multiple HIT Golden Retriever named Deni who also has a considerable sense of humor. When Deni was doing her novice obedience work, she was in a run-off for a class placement and the about-turn was by the steward’s table. Well, possibly because the proximity of the table distracted her for a second because she looked at it briefly, Deni got just a tad behind on that turn. Coming out of the turn and finding her owner in the “wrong” position, she decided she needed to fix things in a hurry. So, she reached over and grabbed Judy’s pants tugging her back into the proper heeling position. When the first tug didn’t totally fix Judy’s position, Deni took a second bite at her pants in an effort to get her owner into the correct spot. By now, of course, the gallery was in stitches and even Judy had to laugh.
Julie Bacon’s Bernese Mountain Dog ‘Karma’ went on to earn advanced titles in obedience, rally, agility and draft dog competition but at their first-ever agility trial, the club hosting the trial was giving out squeaky toys as a ring favor. Karma LOVED all toys but especially small, soft ones with squeakers. Most of the competitors were finished for the day and were standing by the toy bin “testing” the toys as Julie and Karma entered the ring for their first run in a jumpers-with-weaves class. They started the course, made it about a third of the way through and were at the far end of the ring when Karma heard several squeaks from the toy bin area. He abruptly abandoned Julie, ran the length of the ring, out the gate, around the corner and zeroed in on the toy bin where he stopped, sat and stared hopefully at anyone who might be in position to give him a toy.
Andrew Albert’s Belgian Sheepdog ‘Vynnie’ was a very affectionate sort. He particularly loved Andy’s wife. So one day, as she sat at ringside watching him as he did his stuff, at the end of an exercise he spotted her in the gallery. Leaving Andy without so much as a backward glance, he jumped the ring barrier and hopped up in her lap to give her a kiss. Fortunately, according to his owner, the public display of affection occurred between exercises so they weren’t excused but Vynnie’s love for Andy’s wife cost them a bunch of points although they did provide entertainment for the gallery.
When Suzanne Kelleher Duckett first began training her Great Dane ‘Lava’ for agility, she didn’t think she would ever compete as she had a crippling fear of the ring. At one of her first trials, she was a nervous wreck and she wanted to be invisible which is very hard to do when you are running a Great Dane. Somehow they managed to get about halfway through the course before they came to the A-frame. Lava LOVED the A-frame. She flew up, got to the top and then got what Suzanne calls “that wild Great Dane look in her eyes…the one all Great Dane owners know means ‘here it comes.’” Lava leaped off the top of the A-frame and with butt tucked began doing full-blown zoomies running figure eights, then running towards Suzanne like she was playing chicken, taking jumps at will, making up her own course and then ZOOMING right past her embarrassed owner who was trying her level best to catch the collarless Lava. Everyone ringside was cracking up which only made things worse. The dog started playing to the crowd and whatever got the most laughs, that’s what she did. She blew by Suzanne over and over while her panic-stricken owner gave the dog her best “Lava, HERE” commands. Not a chance! The judge was not amused and was chewing Suzanne out for the dog’s unsafe exit off the A-frame, for not having a collar on the dog and, finally, for grabbing the dog as she made a zooming pass just a bit too close to her beleaguered owner. But, despite dying a thousand deaths from embarrassment, Lava’s owner did live to run another agility trial. Naturally, that was not the end of Lava’s antics. On another day, the dog’s next obstacle was a down on the table. While it is not easy to get a Dane to drop all the way down on those small tables, it was not a problem for Lava as she did it all the time in training. However, this time, when Suzanne said “Drop,” Lava got the same devilish gleam in her eyes as she had on the A-frame. She put her elbows down on the table but her tail-end remained upright. The judge couldn’t begin counting until the dog was all the way down and Lava was not about to drop her rear end down because she had discovered that the gallery thought her position is hilarious. While Suzanne said ‘drop’ just about every way imaginable, in keeping with the ”harlequin-as-a-jester“ tradition, Lava had decided that elbows down, butt up was the way it was going to be that day. It was just one more reminder for Suzanne that whenever you are doing any performance activity with a dog, it is essential to have a sense of humor.
Lisa Newton’s Golden Retriever ‘Brix’ was the first female in the breed to earn both a grand championship and a master hunter title. Because she was competing both in the field and the show ring, she carried a lot of coat. They made a seven hour trip to the Nevada desert to run a Master test and because the weather was warm, Lisa put Brix in the water to keep her cool before they ran the land test, a triple up a slight hill with the marks about 100 yards from the line. Brix picked up the first two birds very nicely with very little hunt on either bird. On the third bird, she took a beautiful line to the fall and was just about to it. One of the judges remarked, “Wow, what a great line!” Unfortunately the words were barely out of his mouth when Brix took a hard left and beelined for the area where the vehicles were parked. The second judge said, “I think she’s going to your car.” But his analysis was just as erroneous as the first judge’s comment. For Brix had no intention of going to Lisa’s vehicle. When she thanked the judges for their time and went to look for her dog, sure enough, there was Brix, chest deep in the water in the middle of a pond wagging her tail as happy as could be while her owner kissed an $80 entry fee good-bye.
A similar situation happened to me with one of my dogs. He had completed all the tests without so much as a blip and, for all intents and purposes, had an orange Master ribbon in the bag. All he had to do was a simple honor of a running dog and it was not a difficult honor as the line for the running dog was located several yards away from the honor–this was in the days when retriever hunt tests actually resembled something that you would likely encounter on an upland or waterfowl hunt, not the ridiculous “circus” tests which bear absolutely no resemblance to anything you would ever encounter on a real hunt that they’ve become today in several areas of the country. The birds were shot for the running dog and he took off to make the retrieves. My dog sat quietly through the birds being thrown and shot and the running dog hitting the water and swimming toward the first fall. But it was a hot day and he was warm so just before the judge excused us, the dog jumped in the water and took a brief swim around the clump of decoys sitting in front of us. He did not interfere with the running dog. In fact, he ignored the other dog doing his work. Since it was hot, a quick swim in the chilly pond just seemed like the thing to do. You gotta love ‘em because you never know what they’re thinking.
All of the dogs whose antics were reported in this story are or were very accomplished in both performance and companion dog sports. Several of them are in their breed’s hall of fame. Which just goes to show that even the best ones, every now and then, cannot resist the temptation to “Be a clown, be a clown, all the world loves a clown …Give ‘em quips, give ‘em fun and they’ll pay to say you’re A-one…Be a clown, be a clown, be a clown.”
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Posted by ralbee
on Apr 15 2016. Filed under Current Articles, Editorial, Featured.
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