Black Ribbon

detailed directions to the resort; a long list of items to pack; two copies of a lengthy contract entitled “Waiver of All Liability and Release and Indemnification Agreement,” one of which had to be signed and returned; and two health certificates to be filled in by my veterinarian. The absence of a corresponding form to be completed by my M.D. was, I thought, a sure sign that Maxine McGuire was a real dog person, which is to say, someone who demands written proof that a dog is fecal negative and up-to-date on his shots, but assumes that a mere human being doesn’t have anything worth catching, anyway.
    Ah, but speaking of real dog people, let me explain why my bitch, Kimi, didn’t go to camp by remarking on how ill-deserved is the Old Testament’s reputation for antidog bias! It’s there, of course, and it’s perfectly understandable. Even by my standards, the ancient Egyptians really were dog nuts, and I can imagine that if I were held in bondage by a bunch of reptile-worshippers, I probably wouldn’t run out and get a pet chameleon the second I finally got free, so if establishing the Mount Sinai Kennel Club and chairing its first all-breed show wasn’t exactly Moses’s top priority, you can’t blame him, or God, either. I mean, by comparison with Job, Biblical dog lovers got off easy, and in return for their trials, received more than fair compensation in the consoling verse that I recited to myself on the morning of Sunday, August 22, when I left Kimi, as well as my Cambridge three-decker, in the care of my cousin Leah, and headed for Rangeley, Maine, accompanied only by my male malamute, Rowdy, a creature of many purposes and times, but one blessedly free of the cycles to which Kimi is subject. Indeed, in the words of Ecclesiastes, to every thing there is a season.
     

 
    EXPERIENCED WORLD TRAVELERS, I’m told, pack lightly. Experienced dog people do, too, at least for ourselves: By the time we’ve jammed in everything the dogs will need and found room for such absolute dog-show necessities as folding chairs and ice chests, it’s a miracle if there’s room left for a change of human underwear. But Waggin’ Tail Camp wasn’t a show: So by leaving the grooming table at home, I squeezed in an entire suitcase for myself. When I backed out of my driveway, the remainder of the Bronco held Rowdy’s crate and the bare minimum of paraphernalia he’d need for the week: an orthopedic dog mattress with a fake fleece zip-off cover, a small bag of premium dog food, a canister of liver treats, a supply of cheese cubes in a Styrofoam cooler with two freezer-packs to keep the cheese fresh, a container of large and small dog biscuits, Rowdy’s five favorite chew toys, an X-back racing harness, a longe line, a tracking harness, a thirty-foot tracking lead, two obedience dumbbells—one wooden, one nylon—three white work gloves for the Directed Retrieve, a set of scent discrimination articles in a plastic mesh carrier, a twenty-six foot retractable lead, assorted metal and nylon training collars, a Wenaha doggy backpack, three leather leads, a wire slicker brush, an undercoat rake, a finishing brush, grooming spray, dog shampoo, a food dish, a water bowl, and a king-size sheet to protect the bedspread of my own bed in case Rowdy decided to sleep there instead of in his crate and in case I decided to let him, as he certainly would decide and as I certainly would, too.
    Within the folding crate was Rowdy, who’d realized for a week that we were going somewhere and, now that we were finally heading out of Cambridge on Route 2, rested his big head smugly on his big white snowshoe paws and eyed the front passenger seat.
    “Forget it,” I told him. “You hated that seat belt harness.”
    Having used the rearview mirror for the incidental purpose of checking to see whether a Boston driver was about to smash into me, I again caught Rowdy’s eye and, just as Ford intended, admired my big, beautiful dog. AKC judges have done so too, not in mirrors, of course, but they have, conformation judges somewhat more ardently than obedience judges, I might add. Rowdy finished his breed championship easily. Putting the X for Excellent on his Companion Dog title, however, had taken us more attempts than I care to report, thank you. Need I explain? The Alaskan malamute is the heavy-freighting dog of the Inuit speakers of Mahlemut, a dialect of Inupiat in which the sounds rendered in English as the command Come! actually