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The World's Best Dog Trainer
Jul. 18th, 2009 12:57 pmJump: Wheaton, MN --> Ortonville, MN – South end of Big Stone Lake: 40 miles
RIGHT out of the fairgrounds onto HWY 75 SOUTH
HWY 75 SOUTH to Ortonville…
Arrows to the lot…
Shows at 5pm/7:30pm
After several days of eavesdropping on Minnesotans in coffee houses, supper clubs and taverns I’ve come to the realization that every single one of them riffs like Garrison Keilor doing his Lake Woebegone monologue!
They just don’t have any sense of irony about it.
###
The world’s best dog trainer lives in Wheaton, Minnesota. She’s nine and a half.
I met her last night when I was rather disconsolately walking the dogs in the park adjacent to the Traverse County Fairgrounds. I say “disconsolately” because without Robin to distract me the old feelings of failure and despair have reemerged. Also moments before the dogs had gotten into a huge fight over half an ounce of kibble. The RV is too contained a space for two territorial animals, I suppose. I’d never seen Milo so aggressive before – he bared his fangs, ripped into Xena’s neck. Drew blood.
The world’s best dog trainer appeared as if by magic skipping alongside me. “What’s the big one’s name?”
“Milo.”
“Milo. And the little one?”
“Xena.”
“Xena! That’s a name you don’t hear every day.”
I guess when Sam Raimi was making his television bones, the world’s best dog trainer hadn’t yet been born.
She picked up a stick. “Milo! Fetch!”
Milo snatched the stick from her hand and pranced with it.
“No, Milo. No. You’re supposed to let me throw it and then you’re supposed to bring it back.”
Milo cantered tantalizingly a few steps ahead of her with the stick in his mouth.
He doesn’t actually like to fetch the stick,” I said nervously. “He likes to carry it around in his mouth.”
But the world’s best dog trainer was ignoring me.
“This won’t do,” she said. “This won’t do at all. Milo, bring me that stick.”
And he did!
In short order she got him to sit, lay down and stay.
“It’s all in your tone of voice,” she explained. “You have to show them you mean business. You have to be absolutely consistent.”
“You’re very good at this,” said I. As we all know I have the consistency of a traffic light with a broken regulator switch.
“Oh, I’ve trained a lot of dogs in my day,” she said modestly.
“How many?”
“Six.”
Shortly thereafter though when I’d had enough of the park the world’s best dog trainer turned back into a pudgy, lonely, slightly annoying little girl. It’s too bad that’s the way these relationships have to end up. But they almost always do.
###
Other than playing home to the world’s best dog trainer, the town of Wheaton, Minnesota is a dismal place with nothing to recommend it. Most depressed looking Main Street I’ve seen in a long while, three blocks of largely vacant storefronts squatting in buildings had been cutting edge architecture back in premillenial Belle Epoque ought three. Aluminum siding added eighty years later had done little to revitalize their appeal.
If the Chamber of Commerce of a town like this is your sponsor, it’s a safe surmise you ain’t gonna make a cent.
RIGHT out of the fairgrounds onto HWY 75 SOUTH
HWY 75 SOUTH to Ortonville…
Arrows to the lot…
Shows at 5pm/7:30pm
After several days of eavesdropping on Minnesotans in coffee houses, supper clubs and taverns I’ve come to the realization that every single one of them riffs like Garrison Keilor doing his Lake Woebegone monologue!
They just don’t have any sense of irony about it.
The world’s best dog trainer lives in Wheaton, Minnesota. She’s nine and a half.
I met her last night when I was rather disconsolately walking the dogs in the park adjacent to the Traverse County Fairgrounds. I say “disconsolately” because without Robin to distract me the old feelings of failure and despair have reemerged. Also moments before the dogs had gotten into a huge fight over half an ounce of kibble. The RV is too contained a space for two territorial animals, I suppose. I’d never seen Milo so aggressive before – he bared his fangs, ripped into Xena’s neck. Drew blood.
The world’s best dog trainer appeared as if by magic skipping alongside me. “What’s the big one’s name?”
“Milo.”
“Milo. And the little one?”
“Xena.”
“Xena! That’s a name you don’t hear every day.”
I guess when Sam Raimi was making his television bones, the world’s best dog trainer hadn’t yet been born.
She picked up a stick. “Milo! Fetch!”
Milo snatched the stick from her hand and pranced with it.
“No, Milo. No. You’re supposed to let me throw it and then you’re supposed to bring it back.”
Milo cantered tantalizingly a few steps ahead of her with the stick in his mouth.
He doesn’t actually like to fetch the stick,” I said nervously. “He likes to carry it around in his mouth.”
But the world’s best dog trainer was ignoring me.
“This won’t do,” she said. “This won’t do at all. Milo, bring me that stick.”
And he did!
In short order she got him to sit, lay down and stay.
“It’s all in your tone of voice,” she explained. “You have to show them you mean business. You have to be absolutely consistent.”
“You’re very good at this,” said I. As we all know I have the consistency of a traffic light with a broken regulator switch.
“Oh, I’ve trained a lot of dogs in my day,” she said modestly.
“How many?”
“Six.”
Shortly thereafter though when I’d had enough of the park the world’s best dog trainer turned back into a pudgy, lonely, slightly annoying little girl. It’s too bad that’s the way these relationships have to end up. But they almost always do.
Other than playing home to the world’s best dog trainer, the town of Wheaton, Minnesota is a dismal place with nothing to recommend it. Most depressed looking Main Street I’ve seen in a long while, three blocks of largely vacant storefronts squatting in buildings had been cutting edge architecture back in premillenial Belle Epoque ought three. Aluminum siding added eighty years later had done little to revitalize their appeal.
If the Chamber of Commerce of a town like this is your sponsor, it’s a safe surmise you ain’t gonna make a cent.
