Failure™ Magazine

Dogged Pursuit

Meet Dusty, the world’s least likely agility dog.

Written by Jason Zasky   Filed under Arts & Entertainment, Life, Sports

What was the low point of your career together?
There was a point during the year when I gave up. I had driven 50 miles in subarctic temperatures to get to a trial and we had a spectacularly bad run. Then as we were leaving—after I had buckled Dusty into the back seat—I realized my car was stuck on a patch of ice. As I was leaning on the car it started moving and I had to chase it across a field. Then it hit a tree, and a branch of that tree poked me in the eye. It was one thing after another, like God was jabbing me in the ribs saying, “Quit this thing, quit this thing, quit this thing.” So I quit.

But what I realized later is that the reason it was so horrible is because I was there on my own. When I eventually did go back to competing, I had a day that was in many ways as bad or worse, but I could laugh about it because I had friends around me.

What did you learn from competing with Dusty?
I learned about community and about being a part of a family. The other thing I learned was that I can’t project my needs and desires onto Dusty. A lot of people do that to their dogs, but that’s not what they are made for. Competing side-by-side with your dog you develop an almost symbiotic bond. I came to realize that Dusty has his own dignity and qualities that are worthy of respect.

Was there anything that surprised you about the world of canine competition?
I was surprised by the collegial nature of it. At my first trial I was all set to be adversarial with everyone I came into contact with, but that didn’t really work out. What worked was helping out and standing on the sidelines cheering other people on. I found it very moving to see people week after week with their dogs, working and trying to perfect this athletic endeavor.

I understand you have another dog now—a collie named Harley. Is Harley destined for agility competitions?
I did start training Harley for agility. And he didn’t get it at all. I tried to get him to go over the jumps and he would just walk through them and knock them down and then look up at me like, “What? What’d I do?” I ended up withdrawing Harley from agility and now I’m training him to be a therapy dog. He’s much better at that.

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