Saturday, August 23, 2008

Happy Birthday, Harry Houdini!


Harry Houdini is ten years old this month.

He was my first smooth fox terrier, in fact, my first dog. Oh, of course, my family had dogs when I was a kid, a rotating cast of daschunds, but while my brother and I played with them all the time, I never felt that connected to any of them.

I had progressed to a point in my career where I at last owned a house. A house needs a dog, I thought. So after doing a lot of research, I decided that this breed was the one for me: small, tough, active. Soon after making that decision, I saw a very small ad in the Salt Lake City paper: Smooth Fox Terriers, Provo, and a phone number. Sure, I know now that the Abegglins were backyard breeders. They had half a dozen very nice dogs of Australian lineage, but they made little effort to control who mated with whom. But I didn't know about any of that at the time. Harry was the last pup from their most recent litter. I saw him running around the backyard with the rest of their pack and fell in love with him in an instant.

Harry earned his name by making a miraculous escape from a room with a closed door and a puppy gate in the doorway. I found him upstairs on my bed when I got home from work, the door downstairs still closed, the puppy gate still in place. I didn't learn about crates until a couple of years later following the "glitter glue" incident (a tale for another day).


Harry has had many wonderful adventures in his life. He's been white-water rafting half a dozen times, he's been on numerous cross-country road trips, he's canyoneered in central Utah, he's hiked up 12,000-foot peaks, he spent several winters running with me and his pack in the snowy foothills above Salt Lake City, he's successfully hunted gophers and rabbits and mice. He sleeps next to me almost every night. But even with all of this, Harry LIVES for flyball.

I happened upon flyball at a fund-raising event one weekend in Salt Lake City. A club called Salty Dogzz was giving a demo in a park. It was good timing because I had been thinking that my dogs, now two in number, really needed a hobby. Daily runs and ball play weren't enough to wear them out. Flyball looked like a perfect fit for my Harry. He had become ball obsessed very early and with his drive, speed, and focus, I thought he'd be a natural.

You always make all of the training mistakes with your first dog, but if you are lucky, that first dog forgives them all. I was lucky. We joined Salty Dogzz and were at our first tournament in Las Vegas three months later. Harry made all of the usual newbie errors: he crossed lanes, he chased other dogs, he dropped the ball. After the first few races, I was in tears--why couldn't Harry figure this out?! I understand now that he simply wasn't ready to compete. But we stuck with it.

As the years passed, I became a better trainer and we became a better team. It took me almost two years to teach him to come to a tug in flyball--the ball had always trumped any and all other toys and treats. Now he's a tugging fiend and I'd be hard pressed to say which he loves more, the tug or the ball. But then again, both of them mean flyball to him, so as long as it's flyball, he's happy!

We've been members of four different flyball clubs since we started playing the game in 2000. I and my friend Gosia left Salty Dogzz in 2002 to form our own club, the Utah Tail Blazers. They are still going strong and you can read about their successes here. I left Utah in 2005 and moved back to Texas where I joined Austin Flyball Association. After about a year, I moved on to Dogz Rule! And even though Harry and I don't live in Austin anymore, and there are several flyball clubs in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, we still train and compete with DR! I couldn't imagine a better fit for me and my boy.

Harry has his NAFA FMCH title and I hope that he will get his ONYX title before he retires. He's got about 3500 points to go! At 10, Harry still runs around 4.7-4.9 seconds. Not only is this a great time for a dog his size, but it's a fabulous time for a dog his age. In 2002, he was running 5.2-5.3 seconds, but around age 6 something really clicked for him. He suddenly peaked mentally as well as physically, and he started running faster and with a much more consistent performance. By NAFA stats, he's been the first- or second-ranked smooth fox terrier active in North American flyball for several years.

Here's to Harry Houdini, my Harry-belly boobullah, my sweet boy! May you play flyball for many years to come!

3 comments:

Lauren said...

Happy Birthday Harry! We love ya! Keep giving them border collies a run for their money on the flyball lanes!

Lauren

lilspotteddog said...

Thanks, Lauren! It's always merrier with a terrier!

D.

R3K9S said...

Happy Belated Birthday Harry!

What a wonderful journey you are having.

Your tug story gives me hope for my ball obsessed lab.

Thanks to you, your Mom and G for starting UTB. We appreciate all you did/do to make the team what it is today.

Happy racing!