Black Ribbon

the Masons phrase it, “devoid of all moral worth.” Any brotherhood, any sisterhood, any order, including the fancy, has a few members unfit to be received into the lodge. But Ginny? I’d never actually seen her kennels. I had the impression that she bred very selectively, the best to the best. If I’d had to guess, I’d have wagered that she bred only a litter or two a year. But how could I really have defended her? Ginny is one of us, I could have said. And you, Eva, very definitely are not.
    “Bingo sure doesn’t look like a puppy-mill dog,” I said.
    Big mistake. In trying to be kind to Eva, I’d patted an abandoned animal I had no intention of taking home. Eva launched into an intolerably boring and seemingly interminable Bingo-centered monologue that ended only because Rowdy, unassisted by a pinch collar, drowned her out. Mala-mutes spend hours, sometimes days, without uttering a sound. Old breed joke: They aren’t called malawzztfe for nothing. But when they feel like it, they can scream like hungry babies, wail like fire engines, and bellow like moose, all at the same time. I picked up my carried of scent articles and Rowdy’s little canvas travel bag of assorted dog supplies, pointed to Rowdy, mouthed nonsense syllables, and raced off down the road.
    The sun had burned off the haze of the early morning. A few white cumulus clouds lingered. Miles up, the air must have been motionless. Just above the asphalt parking lot, it shimmered. Except around the obedience tent, the big field on the opposite side of the blacktop was empty. The breed handling class must have been taking place somewhere else, some place shady. I was sorry to miss it. Also in progress, if I remembered correctly, were doggy swimming lessons or maybe water rescue. Advanced agility would start soon. Jump chutes—chute jumping? Whatever it was called, it sounded like fun. If I could locate it, I’d cool Rowdy down, drench him if I had to, and let him give it a try.
    Not for anything, though, would I skip obedience, which is my home within the home of dog fancy and the most comfortingly ritualist of the orders that make up what anthropologists would call a ritual brotherhood but what is, in fact, a sisterhood open to men. A true secret society, we really do have hidden mysteries, not because we try to hide our knowledge, though, but because our craft is damned hard to learn.
    Anyway, what’s exceptional about us is that whereas almost all other secret societies, from socially valued brotherhoods to notorious criminal bands, from Freemasonry to the Cosa Nostra, are open only to men, our membership consists mainly of women. Also, on a less academic and more practical —not to mention romantic—note, let me add that, far from trying to exclude men, we actively welcome them. For one thing, it’s a lot of work lugging around those heavy mats and jumps, and the excess of muscular bulk that results from a lifetime of testosterone poisoning comes in very handy. For another, just as we enjoy having the monotony of all those high-scoring golden retrievers, Border collies, shelties, and poodles relieved by the occasional bloodhound, bullmastiff, Pharaoh hound, or even, God forbid, Alaskan malamute, so too are we delighted to welcome the least traditional of the nontraditional obedience breeds, the human male.
    Indeed, to encourage men to participate in our sport, we’ve even instituted what amounts to an affirmative action program, and in case you think that we lower our rigorous standards in electing men to club offices, making them judges, and hiring them as head trainers, let me point to such gifted males as the late Milo Pearsall, not to mention Bob Self, Bernie Brown, Bob Adams, and the Worshipful Master of our camp obedience lodge, Chuck Siegel, an immensely tall blond guy of forty or so who was standing in the shade of the obedience tent instructing a group of eight women and one man, Michael, in one of the hidden mysteries of our order, namely, the art of spitting food.
    I dumped my gear in an out-of-the-way spot at the edge of the tent, opened the canvas travel bag, got out Rowdy’s plastic travel bowl and a plastic bottle of water, and let him have a big drink. As he slurped, I filled my pockets with little cubes of cheddar that I’d brought to camp and carried that morning next to a plastic-encased ice substitute that was still cool from its sojourn in my freezer at home. In addition to Rowdy’s good wooden dumbbell from