Team Dog

Here at California's Wildwood venue of the Alternative Olympic Games, the all around team dog athletes made their first appearance together. Other members of the team who are specialists will be making appearances later. Spike, with the consummate ability to predict precisely  when Blake will stand up impressed the reporters standing by with a new trick...walking underneath Blake without committing any fouls or foot faults. Both dogs are excellent at following the directions of their trainers...when they feel like it, although they have very different motivations.

Spike (note his striking resemblance to the British actor Marty Feldman) is a very strong favorite for the gold in retrieving thrown objects and seems physically unable to resist looking for them  when he hears  them hit the ground. Spike has impressed this reporter with his decision to compete in the alternate games rather than the Alternate Paralympics  for disabled athletes because he is blind in one eye. He has certainly demonstrated his acute hearing. HIs specialty is the green Kong*. 

Blake, on the other hand  has perfected the art of prone gymnastics*,  and is strongly motivated by a supine roll and a belly rub, and by his unerring concentration on, and consumption of food. He has excelled recently on Apricot retrieval and consumption at the Barn Owl training center where he lives.

These athletes will do anything to please their trainers, but each in his own way seems completely resistant to outside pressure or expectation. They are comfortable in their own bodies and despite the unrelenting demands of the games, seem to have an excellent sense of when to ease off on their training and follow their own instincts.

The humans at the Wildwood venue are both saddened and impressed by the withdrawl of the unmatched American gymnast, Simone Biles from the incredibly high pressure, dangerous competition. She had the courage to recognize that she was putting herself in danger, both physically and mentally, if she continued. In full view of the cameras she left the arena in mid competition, composed herself, and returned to encourage and support the remaining members of her team who also impressed by stepping up the fill her place.

The commentators, kept saying that this was 'unprecedented' behavior for an Olympian. It didn't surprise me. It is impossible to conceive of the pressures and expectations placed on these competitors who have trained since childhood, often giving up any semblance of a 'normal' social life. We seem to think of them as robots when the fact that they are human is what really inspires us. They are real people with real emotions trying to live up to unrealistic expectations and furthermore, never to express the way they 'really' feel to the media. Even elite athletes are human and I applaud Simone Biles for her courage in showing it.