My son had a cat living in his house who knew that he possessed the Secret of the Red Light.

Alan had an infrared pen which he shined on the floor and that cat chased from room to room, in circles and mad dashes across the house. Once she he ran the light under the door of of one his housemates’ rooms and she waited faithfully for hours for the light to come back out.

He laughed and insisted she knew he was the one who has the light. She would come to him and meow and meow until he played with her. The ultimate suspension of disbelief.

I told him this is why some of our dogs, the smarter ones, were not good lure coursers.* They had speed and agility and endurance. Certainly they were enthusiastic. Speed, Agility, Endurance, and Enthusiasm were four of the five scoring categories. But the fifth scoring category was Follow. They watched, they responded to each twist and turn of the lure on the ground. They chased the lure enthusiastically, but eventually—often too soon—some part of them simply refused to play along.

“Wait a minute, enough already! That thing is only a shredded plastic garbage bag dragged by a line. Go over there where the line is—it’s bound to get there eventually.”

They began cutting, shaving off corners, in order to get to where the lure was going rather than following behind. They understood the game they were playing, that the lure was not moving freely, but along a predetermined path. They knew it was not alive. They did not pretend it had a choice of where to run, but they did. They couldn’t, or chose not to, suspend disbelief to play this game for us. They wanted to win, I suppose. The hunt was more vital than simply the chase. They wanted success at the end.

Where is the sweet spot between being right, being first, being a winner, and being entertained?

It seems such a human thing in some ways, or perhaps it is very animal and at least some of the hounds who were fooled and continue to be fooled know they are playing and are as willing to play as are we throughout so much, perhaps too much, of our lives.

 

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*The American Sighthound Field Association developed from a Borzoi and Saluki fancier, Lyle Gillette’s determination to find a year-round activity that allowed sighthounds to practice their skills. Lyle was a sweet man, very active and successful in showing his dogs. He had hunted wild hares in Open Field Coursing but that is a seasonal activity, and the dogs love it. Lure coursing was mostly his invention while he was still living in California.

In the late 70s, my husband and I were active in establishing ASFA (later AKC) field trials for sighthounds in the Pacific NW. For years we traveled all over running our dogs. I was a licensed ASFA judge, but began judging because of my involvement with Heather and Jeff Loube in BC. I traveled with the Loube in 1975, I think, to Denver to the inaugural Grand National. There were over a hundred sighthounds from all over the nation competing. The Loubes came home determined to establish the sport in Canada, which they did with the support of other sighthound owners, some with Open Field experience.