Kemba Does Kampus

We’ve seen a bunch of firsts for my Duck Dog this past week:  1. his first, legit, off-leash,

multi-mile run with me (Eureka!);  2. his first successful, full-extension, airborne Frisbee snag (see video), and 3. his first writing class audited!

That’s right — I took Kemba to Trinity with me Wednesday night.  The game plan called for me to head to Vermont directly from Hartford, which meant, of course . . . Bring-Your-Dog-To-Class-Day!  (What, I’m going to go to VT without my best buddy??)

I figured we’d do a pre-class fetch workout on the Long Walk quad, to settle him down a bit.  I assumed the quad would be empty, as it’s been every other Wednesday at 5:30 the whole winter term.  What I didn’t account for —

and who would, on March 9??!! — was 79-degree Hartford weather!  Everyone remember what a college green looks like on that first spring-fever afternoon?  Uh-huh.  Girls sitting in clusters, talking, laughing.  Guys flinging lacrosse balls, footballs, and other flying objects.  As Kemba and I walked through Fuller Arch and this glorious scene unfolded, I watched his ears perk up and his tail go into over-drive — and I knew exactly what he was thinking:  So many new people to throw for me!  So many new people to admire me!  So many new people to love me!  My dog wooed cluster after cluster, playing the crowd like a fiddle.  I could have vanished into Seabury 408 and run my whole class and he wouldn’t have missed me.

That’s where I did drag him, eventually, after extracting him from his groupies.  I closed the

door of our room behind us, since he seemed eager to “help” all the professors who had offices on the fourth floor.  When my students entered, Kemba gave each an enthusiastic but, I’m pleased to say, quite civilized greeting.  (The “No jumping” is starting to sink in, ever so slowly.)

I kept him occupied the first hour with an elk antler, and the second with a bacon-flavored squeaky ball.  Did this work perfectly?  Well . . . I noticed that Maxine seemed a little distracted reading her excellent essay about a touching encounter with her teenage son while Kemba was squeaking away and nudging the ball insistently in her direction for fetch.  But on the whole, with a hyper-active one-and-a-half-year-old dog and five writing students confined to a small seminar room for two hours, I think we did all right.

As to the literary give-and-take, Kemba was soaking it all up.  Maybe next time he’ll be ready to contribute more to the class discussion.

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