From the very beginning, Mack was easy to train. We aced puppy training and quickly got into obedience. But all that sit-stay, down-stay just didn’t showcase my Sheltie’s personality. Agility was more his style. Here’s the thing. I’m not a joiner; I’m not a performer. I’m the woman behind the desk, or the cash register. I’ve been so transient that I’ve never felt that belonging to anything made sense. A year here, a few months there. The need to keep moving is like an itch. Usually, I feel that urge after a breakup, or if a job has just gotten too annoying. My résumé, if I had one, would be a long list of short-term jobs. I’ve thought about training as a dental hygienist. Or a nurse’s aide. I like the health-care field. I’ve even taken a few courses as an EMT, but never finished. But we joined the Agility Club, and that is what’s held me in Washington for longer than any other place I’ve lived. And when Saundra Livingbrook introduced me to canine freestyle, I knew that Mack and I had found our game. Canine freestyle, dog dancing, is not obedience or field trials; it’s not a beauty pageant. It is egalitarian, open to all dogs, regardless of breed. The beauty comes from the enthusiasm of the dog for its work. All dogs that show a devotion to work and are easily trained are welcome. Trained, not like dogs, but like ballerinas. The talent coaxed out with hand signals and repetition, praise and bits of bacon. Lots of hard work. Mack took to it like the natural athlete he is. I could make my signals as subtle as could be and he’d see them. Those herd-dog eyes, mismatched though they are—one blue and one brown—catching my slightest movement. Hand up, palm out, spin; hand up palm out, one finger cocked, back up. Depending on the music, those movements look like a waltz or a rumba, like we are dancing, when, in fact, I am giving him signals, his eyes on me with such focus, the world could drop away. Mack never tires of it.

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Mack waits for me to fasten his little tuxedo front on. His little white feet dance in place, happy that we’re getting ready to strut our stuff. He shakes himself from the tip of his little black nose down through his magnificent white ruff, along his silver-and-black body to the tip of his plumed tail tipped in white. He’s ready; he’s got his game face on. I adjust my own costume, a white jumpsuit embellished with silver sequins, a white top hat finishing the look for “Puttin’ on the Ritz.” There we were, in this high school gymnasium in Seattle, costumes on, Saundra doing a last-minute adjustment to the straps of my jumpsuit, my blue merle Shetland sheepdog already pumped to get out there. An announcer speaking our names: “Please welcome Justine Meade and her dog Maksim.” The spotlight is on us.