Black Ribbon

doughnut aside, and, instead of using the flex lead to reel in her dog, adopted a stiff pose, put on a deadly serious expression, and commanded in the stem tones of old-fashioned formal obedience, “Bingo, comer Bingo was no dope; he completely ignored her. Impressed? Take heart. Your dog, too, can easily learn not to come when he’s called. Just look and sound as if you’ll kill him when he gets in striking distance. Works every time. But don’t count on teaching a Labrador retriever to lunge at other dogs. The typical Lab needs to be prevented from kissing everything on four paws.
    By then, I’d retreated out of the radius of Bingo’s retractable lead and had Rowdy sitting politely at my left side with his attention fixed on my face and his mind intent on the intriguing question of whether my mouth did or didn’t contain a lump of cheese or a bit of hot dog that would sail his way if he kept watching. If I haven’t mentioned it already, let me say that Rowdy honestly is a good dog.
    As I was telling him so, Eva finally had the sense to start reeling Bingo in. As the Lab turned his attention from Rowdy, however, he spotted the remains of Eva’s discarded doughnut, which rested on the ground about midway between Eva and Joy, who had dashed away and clutched the frightened-looking Cairn, Lucky, in her arms. Or I think that’s what happened; I’m giving Bingo the benefit of the doubt. When he headed full tilt toward Joy, I think that he just wanted the doughnut; I don’t think that he meant to attack Lucky. Even so, Joy can’t be blamed for screaming and turning tail. And Bingo can’t really be blamed for going after her, either; in the eyes of a dog, a person who shrieks and runs becomes interesting prey. What we advise kids in dogwise courses is to “be a tree.” Then some bright kid always pipes up and says, “But I’ll get peed on!” and we say, “Sure, maybe you will, but what’s worse, getting peed on or getting bitten?” Gets ’em every time.
    Fortunately, though, despite Joy’s distinctly nonarboreal dash for safety and despite Eva’s ludicrous repetition of the reliably useless “Bingo, come!” the Lab eventually found the doughnut, and while he was gulping it down, Eva finally managed to reel him.
    “Good boy, Rowdy,” I said. “Okay!” That’s his release word. The one that triggers the rapt attention is “Ready!” Why ready? The sacred rites of the obedience ring require the judge to ask each exhibitor two ritual questions, the second of which is, “Are you ready?” One acceptable answer is, of course, yes, but as an attention-triggering word, it has obvious disadvantages. A second acceptable answer does dual service as a reply to the judge and a cue to the dog: “Ready.”
    Awakened from his trance, Rowdy became a normal malamute again; he eyed Bingo, and his hackles rose.
    Eva addressed Joy, not me. “That’s a malamute, not a husky. Malamutes are part wolf.”
    My own hackles rose higher than Rowdy’s. Be a tree , I thought. “All dogs are descended from wolves,” I said quietly. I’d barely arrived at camp. We’d be here for a week. I didn’t want a fight. My smile encompassed Eva and Joy. “I’m Holly Winter. And this is Rowdy. I’m sure the dogs will do fine once they get used to each other. They’re bound to be a little nervous. The new setting and everything?” I hate to have Rowdy watch me roll belly-up, but I continue to retain a remote sense of human diplomacy—as opposed to malamute diplomacy, a form of negotiation with a single rule: Never back down.
    “Lucky is just beside himself,” Joy said with relief. “We drove all the way from Oregon, and he’s been cooped up in the car, and now all these dogs! He’s totally overwhelmed.” It seemed to me that if I were clutched in someone’s arms as nervously as the Cairn was in Joy’s, I’d lose a little self-confidence, too, but I didn’t say so.
    Eva did. “Put him down. You’re making him nervous. The way you grab him like that, he thinks he can’t stand up for himself.”
    Joy’s eyes darted to Bingo. She tightened her grip on Lucky. “Well, how could he? I mean, poor Lucky only weighs fifteen pounds, and he really isn’t used to big dogs. He’s scared of them.”
    “Should’ve taken him to puppy kindergarten,” Eva snapped.
    Shameful apology pinched Joy’s face. “I didn’t know about it then. When I got Lucky, I didn’t know anything.” She paused. “He came from a pet