Black Ribbon

large, small, hairy, sleek, bony, corpulent, as varied in size and shape as were we campers ourselves. What did me in were two golden retrievers splashing in and out. Goldens were what I had before I lost my sanity. Except to the extent that dog obedience is a sport dedicated to the proposition that any dog can be taught to act like a golden retriever, I’d always loved Rowdy for who he was, a dog who hated water as passionately as my goldens had loved it. It was true that Rowdy chased ocean waves, but only, I suspected, because they represented a particularly aggressive form of what he hated most: water. The time Kimi knocked him off the dock and into my father’s pond, Rowdy swam very efficiently. That was true, too. Rowdy raced directly to dry land, where he indignantly shook himself off and tore around in what looked like a frantic effort to ward off hypothermia.
    So I should have crated Rowdy in the cabin and gone for a swim by myself. Instead, I’d put on my bathing suit, leashed Rowdy, and led him to the edge of the lake, where he’d moistened the pads of his feet, sniffed, and, having perhaps detected the odor of fish, ventured in up to his pasterns. At that point, when I should have given him the chance to paddle around, I d stupidly waded out beyond him and tried to sweet-talk him into following me. And Eva Spitteler had listened in.
    “The big scaredy-cat,” Eva taunted.
    Sticks and stones. The shore of the lake offered a great many. I longed to ram every one down Eva Spitteler’s ugly throat. But dog people are the best people on earth. No one laughed. No one even smiled. Cam White looked from Eva to Rowdy to me, and moved her head back and forth as if vetoing Eva’s existence. Phyllis Abbott, who’d been splashing; around with two Pomeranians, one red, one sable, spoke with the same tone of authority she used in addressing the spectators just before she handed out the ribbons: “It’s a survival characteristic. In Arctic waters, a dog can die in seconds. It’s adaptive behavior.” Turning to me, she said, “What a beautiful dog.”
    I thanked her. Rowdy backed up and shook himself all over. “He blew coat in July,” I said. “He’s just starting to look like himself again.”
    “Haven’t I seen you in the ring?” Mrs. Abbott asked. She wore a heavily shirred, pastel-print bathing suit with those low-cut leg openings that the L.L. Bean catalog always promises will “provide good coverage in the seat.” It’s so interesting to see people undressed or even half undressed. At the edge of the lake in her good-coverage maillot with her admirable Pomeranians bouncing around her small feet, Mrs. Abbott remained one of the fancy’s perfect types: the great big woman with little tiny dogs. It could truly be said, as the expression goes, that she was “big in toys.”
    “I stewarded for you a couple of years ago,” I replied. “At Cambridge.” The Cambridge Dog Training Club’s annual trial. Mrs. Abbott knew that. “And I used to have goldens.” Before Mrs. Abbott could start encouraging me to train Rowdy, I said, “I still show a little in obedience. Rowdy just got his CDX.”
    “A CDX malamute!” Although I always try to memorize: the heeling pattern a judge is using, I still like to hear the commands ring out clearly. Mrs. Abbott’s New York accent somehow helped to project her voice.
    His attention drawn to Rowdy, Eric Grimaldi gave me a nod of congratulations, took a second look at Rowdy, and said, “Good-looking dog.”
    Eric, I might point out, was a conformation judge, and he didn’t judge just one or two breeds, either. As I’d learned from Cam and Ginny, he was a Sporting Group judge. Admiring my dog. Brag, brag. That the Alaskan malamute belongs to the Working Group is incidental.
    I returned Eric’s compliment. “Beautiful Chesapeake. I love watching her in the water.”
    The Adam and Eve of the breed, Sailor and Canton, arrived in this country in 1807 when an English brig went aground on the shores of Maryland. The American ship Canton rescued the passengers, the drunken crew, and the two presumably sober puppies. Ever since, the Chesapeake Bay retriever has been striving to return to the oceanic womb from which it sprang. A good all-around hunting dog and handsome, versatile companion, the Chesapeake is the ultimate breed for hunting waterfowl, and a unitary breed, not split into bench and field lines.
    Eric’s face showed pride and chagrin. “Once Elsa hits