Black Ribbon

I’d written about the miserable conditions of the AKC-registered breeding stock in the puppy mills. In a recent column, I’d discussed a report published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, according to which the puppies in three California pet shops were about twice as likely to have kennel cough, giardiasis, diarrhea, vomiting, severe gastroenteritis, or some other illness than were pups from private sources. The AKC connection? Every time a Puppy mill operator registers a dog, a bitch, or litter; and every time a puppy mill operator transfers a puppy to a puppy broker; and every time the broker sells a puppy to a pet shop; and every time a puppy buyer registers the puppy, the American Kennel Club collects a fee. My great offense, I think, was to point out that in revoking the AKC registration privileges of about twenty puppy mill operators every month, the AKC was actually closing down each month only about .4 percent of the estimated 5,000 puppy mills in this country. I may also have commented that it didn’t seem like enough.
    Cam looked embarrassed. Her husband, John R.B. White, was an AKC delegate who sat on some committee or other, but his father, Richard Burton White, had been a real power in the fancy and at the AKC. I had the impression that the son had inherited some of the father’s clout. “That’s not what I was thinking of,” Cam said. “It was more like, oh, show reports, something like that. If someone felt slighted, you know, that kind of thing.”
    “I don’t do show reports.” I tried to keep my voice neutral. A show report in my own national breed club newsletter reads something like this: On June 25 at the East Podunk K.C., BOB was CH Wolfwhistle’s Silver Dagger, Buzzy, owned by John and Jane Bishop. It goes on to say that BW, WD was another dog owned by the same people or by someone else; that BOS, WB was a bitch owned by so-and-so; and so forth and so on, all of which is glorious to read if you happen to be John or Jane Bishop, whose dog went Best of Breed, or if yours went Best of Winners and Winners Dog or Best of Opposite and Winners Bitch. Otherwise? Sure, all of us love to see our dogs’ names in print, and we want to see how other people’s dogs are doing, but what everyone, absolutely everyone, wants to do with show reports is read them or skim them or just know that they’re there; there’s not a dog writer on earth who honestly enjoys writing them. I mean, you slave over them trying to inject a little spirit, a little dash, a little humor, and what happens? Either no one notices, or someone whose dog just got a plain old mention snubs you or yells at you at the next show and accuses you of playing politics by promoting someone else’s dog when all you did was give it an extra two adjectives. So, as I told Cam, I don’t do show reports anymore.
    “You ever thought about judging?” Ginny asked me, referring, as I understood, to obedience judging. “You judge any matches?”
    “No,” I said. “I could, I guess, but I don’t really have the right temperament. It’s not something I’ve ever wanted to do. I’ve helped out at a couple of Canine Good Citizen tests, but that’s different. I had to fail some dogs, but no one’s going to hold a grudge against me for that, and I don’t think there’s anyone at camp who was there, anyway.”
    “Actually, I was,” Ginny admitted. “Last fall. At Cambridge. Didn’t you just do that ‘accepts grooming’ part?”
    “Yes. Yeah, now I remember. But you passed, didn’t you?”
    “No, as a matter of fact. I had Magic, and you failed her for being too friendly.”
    “Oh, yeah, I remember. She jumped on me and grabbed the brush, and then she wouldn’t let go of it. I had to fail her.”
    “Look,” Cam said, “if Holly didn’t remember that Ginny was there, maybe she’s forgotten someone else. And Ginny’s a tracking judge, and Phyllis judges a lot. So maybe it really is someone with something against the three of you.”
    “But what?” I demanded. “Obedience judging is really quite objective, at least compared to breed. If your dog refuses a jump or breaks a stay or whatever, there’s nothing the judge can do except score you zero on the exercise. And if the dog’s perfect, sure, the judge can dock you a few points for supposedly crooked sits and handler errors that no one else saw, and that does happen.”
    “Does it ever!” Marie groaned.
    “Does it ever!” I agreed.