I found this article lurking on my computer. I'm guessing it appeared in the BMDCNV newsletter sometime in 1998. The original title was missing.

Zoey — Utility Dog!

We began training for Utility in January 1997 when Open was going badly.  Zoey’s stays were solid – I KNEW she’d break the down, her drop on recall as likely to be a sit or a stop as anything else, and her retrieve involved a really testy behavior – taking the jump and then waiting for me to give a second command before she’d pick up the dumbbell and come back.  We had NQ’d nine times since our first leg… Stays were a riot with the many members of the “Open-NQ-Club” commiserating in the out-of-sight spot.  And then, almost by mistake, Zoey qualified a second time and hope raised its head again… Winter break was upon us and it was time to move on…
 
Teaching Zoey to do scent articles was really our last full-blown battle.  So many things in our obedience repertoire are on-going skirmishes.  Will she do the drop signal?  Will she drop-on-recall?  Will she stay down?  (Notice a trend here?)  But scent articles is an exercise where the dog must leave you, go off on its own, and accomplish a task that only the dog can do.  Zoey understood immediately what the stakes were here.  This exercise was not going to happen unless she decided to participate.
 
We had learned the forced dumbbell retrieve with our previous trainer.  Our new one advocated kinder, gentler but no less firm methods and wanted me to try and do this without force.  I was all for this approach.  So, one night we set out four tied-down articles and one scented one with Zoey watching the proceedings.  I said “get it” and “find it”… Zoey took two steps away and looked back at me.  No way.  I begged.  I pleaded.  I had her fetch the one article by itself.  I pulled her back and ran her at the pile.  I got a hoarse throat and lost my voice.  When I wouldn’t let her leave the scene, Zoey went and picked up her Vermont chewman – “find Fred” being a game she understood.  We have three Fred’s and I had to remove all of them from the room.  This went on for days and weeks. Along the way, I did resort to holding her ear to convince her to look at the articles.  My trainer conceded that in this case it worked, as it was returning to the foundation of Zoey’s retrieve – you MUST do the exercise but I promise to make it worth your while with games and treats when you do.
 
After about two weeks of working at getting Zoey to even try the exercise – progressing from Zoey staring at the ceiling to avoid even LOOKING at the articles to Zoey trying to pick up a tied-down one, having it snap back to floor and refusing to try again to Zoey beginning to see the light and actually SNIFFING the articles – we began to have hope.  Two months later, we could proclaim that she “had it.”  The initial break-through took a while, but once she understood the idea, I never had to worry that she couldn’t find it.   Plenty of OTHER things to worry about, but we’ll get to that later…
 
The rest of the exercises proceeded well with the usual sorts of ups and downs and we signed up for our first trial in September.  It was not an especially good day.  I would not recommend our judge to anybody looking for someone to judge Utility A as he was an impatient and rather unforgiving sort, but we blundered our way through the class despite him.  Additionally, Zoey had no interest and was completely OFF.  If she showed like that regularly, I would simply abandon it all together.  It wasn’t fun for either of us.
 
Our second attempt was much more encouraging.  I was not expecting to qualify, just “paying our dues” and getting some experience, but this trial was a real boost to my spirits.  Zoey made a relatively honest mistake on an article, and (?????) took the same jump twice, but she worked with such enthusiasm that I couldn’t possibly have cared less – the audience, the judge and I were all convinced that as she came over that last jump she was definitely going to knock me over and I may have taken a cautionary half-step back, but she merely skidded into a beautiful sit with a hop.  I was ecstatic.
 
In December we signed up for four shows in Boston.  I still felt these were “expensive run-throughs” and fully expected Zoey to ignore my drop signal.   Day One.  Zoey completed signals successfully.  My smile reached my ears, I think, and I whispered to her, “WHAT are you doing?!”  The drop had been my biggest worry so as we proceeded through the rest of the exercises, my jitters increased exponentially… Could it be?  A leg?  YES!!!  Unbelievable! 
 
We had entered Open as well on all four days and it was a small let-down when Zoey broke one of her stays, but it was hard to care too much.
 
Day Two.  Zoey behaved as she was “supposed” to and ignored my first drop signal and did everything else beautifully.  I was thrilled.  THEN she qualified in Open.  That made for a VERY nice day.
 
Day Three.  Zoey had a very, VERY weird heeling pattern for a very, VERY forgiving Utility A judge.  She really forgot where she was and at the first halt she was somewhere in the middle of the ring.  Without a word from me, she remembered where she was supposed to be and returned to heel position while the judge waited.  Then we completed signals.  Cool.  She was quite puzzled with the articles (we used the same set for four days but they were well aired in between times) and by the time she returned with the second one (thoroughly shuffling them all in the process), the judge had no idea if it was right or not and had to check the number.  We continued to scrape by until directed jumping.  On the first go-out, Zoey went to the far-left corner.  The judge indicated the right-hand jump.  Yeah, right.  But she did it!  And then she completed the second half.  The judge announced, “We have a qualifier!”  How about second place with a 172?!  We’ll take it!  Call the show photographer!
 
We went on to qualify in Open – a virtual UDX leg!  (Not a real one – you have to get your UD first!)
 
Day Four.  At this point, I didn’t WANT to qualify in Utility.  In the coming sixty days that we would be permitted to show in Utility A, following completion of the title, there were NO shows.  We’d be heading straight for the B-classes with no time spent in A where the competition is a little less stiff and the goals are much simpler.  But hey, if we came home with our three legs, we’d buy our “brag” cake for the obedience club and be very happy.
 
Zoey started out by qualifying in signals.  Again, that was very cool.  Considering this was our weak point to-date, I was excited that she had done the drop three out of four times.  She went out to get her first article, found it, and was on her way back when suddenly she spotted something on the ceiling.  She stopped.  She spit out the article.  She moved to the edge of the ring to get a closer look.  Everyone in the room is now looking at the ceiling.  (Unfortunately the punch line – “Made you look!” – was not forthcoming.)  There was really nothing to see, other than one of those big heater units that hang on the ceilings in gymnasiums, warehouses, and armories.  The judge and I both tried to convince her to go back and get that article.  Nothing doing.  Okay fine.  I wanted to NQ without the dog developing a bad habit and that covered it beautifully.   Weird things on the ceiling are extenuating circumstances.
 
Zoey found the second article and I bent down and called her with open arms to prevent a repeat performance.  We proceeded through the rest of the exercises, thankfully getting the glove furthest from that strange corner, and started directed jumping.  Zoey was not going anywhere near that side of the ring and took the right hand jump twice.  I must say that judge was great – when a sheltie crashed the bar during directed jumping, he reset the jump and instructed the handler to repeat the exercise so the dog wouldn’t come away frightened.  How nice is that?! 
 
We excused ourselves from Open halfway through the class when Zoey demonstrated that she clearly was not well and remaining in the ring was unfair to the rest of the competitors.  Four days in that very germ-y environment and perhaps some overly greasy pigs’ ears had played havoc with her system.  (She recovered.)
 
In February we traveled to a two-day trial where we had entered Open B and Utility A both days.  Saturday went badly with no drop on recall in Open and no drop signal in Utility.  I tried to psyche myself up to being excited about the fact that she DID do her down-stay.  Sunday, Zoey again said no-thanks on the drop on recall.  My spirits were low, but okay, here comes our Utility class… We can do this.  Really.
 
We’re doing okay and we get to gloves.  We have quite an audience because there’s not a lot of room, so there’s not much choice but to watch the other competitors, and we also have a cheering squad from our obedience club.  Plus, how often do you see a Berner in Utility?  Glove #3, the judge says.  We turn and pivot.  Zoey marks.  I send her. 
 
Something about the ring gates was unusual, I forget what now, but halfway between glove #2 and glove #3 there was something worth looking at.  Zoey went and looked at it.  I think I heard the audience audibly gasp.  But, once she’d checked it out, Zoey remembered what she was doing and went and collected glove #3.  Phew! 
 
Directed jumping.  Her go-outs are getting shorter, and the second one was VERY short.  I was convinced it was TOO short.  But the judge said send her and I knew she could do it so I did.  She took the correct jump and the class was finished… But that last go-out was sort of questionable in everybody’s mind and while the judge made her last notations, we waited in the ring to be excused.  When she finally looked up and announced “you qualified” the crowd erupted in cheers and a poor Novice A team NQ’d from the shock of it.  I was delirious with joy (although very sorry for the Novice A team).  There were a lot of congratulations passed back and forth.
 
Would you believe we haven’t qualified in Utility since?  We showed throughout the spring season, including at the National Specialty (NQ’d in both Open and Utility), with absolutely no luck… Maybe two or three qualifying rounds in Open, but Utility just got worse and worse.   Only once did we do everything, but the judge got tired of waiting on the drop signal and gave me a second signal which I ignored and then Zoey finally went down on her own.  Because of the second signal from the judge, we were NQ’d, but I was pleased with the class overall.
 
And that’s how it went… Zoey took longer and longer to obey the drop signal until I had to use second commands.  On go-outs, she’d get halfway out and stop to see if I was going to make her, knowing that in a show situation I couldn’t.  In training she worked brilliantly.   So many times we’ve said, “if only we could have a trial in Elaine’s back yard…
 
Zoey’s continued inventiveness and some other things on my mind just made it too depressing to continue.  When I had decided to quit, I had one more show to go to.  We went and while we didn’t qualify, Zoey’s attitude was 100% better… I had taken the pressure off of myself and thus off of her and she was a little more interested in working.
 
We took a long break, doing nothing but the occasional set of signals all summer long, putting the articles and jumps away, selling our house and buying a new one, dealing with Tycho’s illness and subsequent loss.  Gradually, we began to put the pieces of Utility back together again, reintroducing go-outs and jumping, trying for more enthusiastic heeling, and inventing new problems on articles. (Bring it back? Why would I want to do that? I’ll just stay out here and fool around until steam blows out your ears…)
 
Zoey earned a second place at our club’s fall member’s match, squeezing between our trainer’s two Dalmatians in the placings.  We were encouraged enough to enter one day in Boston in December (1998), but our entry was lost in cyberspace.  We continued to work casually, trying to correct a severe left hook on go-outs and arguing about articles, and had a repeat of the fall match in the spring… Theo, Zoey, and Simon.  These were wonderful boosts to our confidence. 
 
I’m reading Janet Lewis’ book “Smart Trainers / Brilliant Dogs” and taking a fresh look at the whole issue of reinforcement – when, where, what, how.  The principals of what a “reward” means to not just the giver of that reward but more importantly to the recipient are starting to sink in.   And with Tycho gone, Zoey and I have had not only the time but the need to work on our communication skills.  Tycho always let us know what she wanted and we never had any doubts.  Zoey went along for the ride.  Now she is making a larger effort to let us know what she wants and we are learning her signals.
 
And so, just for fun, we plan to show in the occasional trial, but with Zoey’s less-than-perfect elbows and our two equally stubborn personalities, the UDX potential that I saw a glimpse of has evaporated.  We will move on to other things and be very thrilled with all that we have accomplished.   Time for Zoey to demonstrate how it’s done to a new furball… But we have to find him or her first!

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Follow-up note:

I entered Zoey in a trial in the spring of 1999, Shrewsbury Dog Training Club, where she qualified for the first time since earning her UD title. The 182 we earned that day represented the long road we had traveled to get back to where we were really teammates again. I remember people saying, "so, are you entered in Open, too?" as though being in Utility B presumed you were trying for a UDX leg, but I said, "No, we're doing this for fun and entering Open B would NOT be fun." Qualifying in Utility was more than enough for us. My show summary notes read: "Slow on the drop but decent heeling, even with a forward, left turn, fast pattern. Solid articles. She LOVED getting examined. First go-out was adequate - most of the way; second go-out was pretty short. Our FOURTH leg - YAY!!! She can walk!"

The next time I showed Zoey was at Ladies — which would have been late May or early June, 1999, for our Regional Specialty. She had the Utility class of her life — galloping on the heeling, and quick, trotting returns with articles, the glove, and from the moving stand. But when we started directed jumping, she started out and then looked back and said, "I can't Mom, it'll hurt," and because we had restored our faith in each other, I knew she wasn't pulling a trick. She meant it, I believed her, and I happily retired her. With rest, chiropractic treatment and joint supplements, she lived out her life completely sound. She always loved directed jumping and at training club, she would bark at the other dogs learning how to do it as if to say, "you're doing it all wrong — let me show you!" We'd set the jumps low and let her show off.

I sure learned a lot from training that dog...