Tim Dowling: could the new dog’s tricks make her into a star?

Two women I meet on our walk are way more interested in Jean than me – and insist she’ll clean up if we enter her in the local dog show

I t’s a Saturday morning and I’m walking the dog on a vast bit of scrubland. The path in front of me is parched and deserted. Up ahead, the dog turns the corner at a patch of brambles, and I hear the excited voices of two women. My immediate reaction is one of alarm; I whistle, but the dog doesn’t reappear. The voices rise.

Only when I turn the corner myself do I see that everything is fine: the dog is dashing from one woman to the other, tail wagging, and the women are both delighted. Meanwhile, their own dogs stand to one side, staring balefully at the ground, leads trailing.

“Let me give you one of these,” says the first woman, handing me a bit of paper from a stack. It’s advertising a dog show, taking place on the same scrubland the next afternoon.

“We’ve got a celebrity compere,” says the first, mentioning a name I’ve never heard.

“Anyway, you can register online, and Jean would be most welcome,” says the second woman.

We chat for a little while longer, and then the dog and I continue on our way without seeing another soul for the rest of the walk.

“It was like we were being headhunted,” I tell my wife later. “They made it sound like we’d clean up. Like it was in the bag.”

“She is very well trained now,” my wife says. The dog does have a dog school level 1 certificate, although she dropped out halfway through level 2 to pursue other interests.

“I don’t think it’s really a discipline thing,” I say. “It’s more like, waggiest tail, best trick … ”

“She does tricks,” my wife says. It’s true – the middle one has taught the dog a few tricks. Unfortunately, her best trick is the one where he pretends to shoot her with a gun and she pretends to fall down dead.

That evening, I think about other dog shows we’ve been to – three, possibly four. They are charming events, but with a bit of an edge. So many excited dogs in close proximity, along with children and a tense air of competition.

The last time we attended one, more than 10 years ago, my wife and the old dog were beaten into second place by a six-year-old girl, whose spaniel sat down at her command. My wife spent the rest of the weekend saying she’d been robbed.

“It’s not supposed to be about cute,” she said. I didn’t say: I think it is.