Black Ribbon

attention,” Cam commented.
    “Thank you,” I said. “He crabs out.” Translation: Instead of trotting along parallel to me, he heels with his front in close and his hindquarters out.
    “Yeah, he does,” Cam agreed.
    If you don’t show your dogs, you might imagine that my feelings were hurt, but except among the very top handlers, and not all of them—Cam, for example—obedience isn’t like that, and, especially among owner-handlers, neither is conformation.
    I said, “I thought that was the kind of thing Chuck was going to work on.”
    “It was,” Ginny said, “but there weren’t enough people or whatever, and so Maxine combined all the show obedience, and he’s stuck trying to do everything.”
    “She did that a long time ago,” Cam said. “That’s what someone told me. Last winter or spring or something, when Lynette Watson was all set to come and do beginners’ and Novice, she got a letter from Maxine saying that, gee, she didn’t need her after all, and all about how sorry Max was. And Lynette wrote back and said it was far enough in advance, no problem. Only nobody bothered to tell us.”
    “Lynette’s name was in that stuff that got sent to us.” Ginny sniffed. “Not that it matters to me.”
    “Not that it does to me, either,” Cam said. “But what about Lynette? She could’ve made a stink if she’d felt like it. She lets people take advantage of her.”
    “Maybe Maxine didn’t have much choice,” Ginny said.
    “Maybe she just wasn’t getting as many people as she expected, or there weren’t all that many obedience people, and—”
    “Which, since you mention it—” Cam said.
    “There aren’t,” I finished. “There aren’t all that many of us.”
    “Open?” Irma called. “Anyone for Open? And could I have some help setting up the jumps?”
    Dog obedience shares with other human groups the universal internal distinction between those who pitch in and those who don’t. Phyllis Abbott and her buddies continued to talk among themselves while Cam, Ginny, Michael, and I carried out the broad jump hurdles and the high jump. As I was struggling to assemble the high jump, I overheard Phyllis saying, “What a mean thing to do! Losing a dog to bloat is bad enough, but this is utterly inexcusable!”
    Bloat: gastric dilatation and volvulus syndrome, killer of dogs, especially of big breeds.
    I glanced over to make sure that Rowdy hadn’t budged from his down-stay. “Is there a dog here with bloat?” I asked. The condition isn’t contagious. To scare me, it doesn’t have to be. The word alone makes my own stomach swell and twist.
    “No,” Phyllis fumed. “Some stupid person has been leaving printed material all over camp. And among other things, this individual left an article on bloat in Jennifer’s handbag.” Phyllis swept a hand toward a sleek, fit, brown-haired woman with an equally sleek, fit Doberman bitch. “And we have been discussing what to do about the problem.” Lowering her voice to a level perfectly audible to the Dobermanlike Jennifer, Phyllis added, “Jennifer lost her Samson last spring.”
    “Bloat,” I guessed.
    Phyllis nodded.
    “I’m very sorry,” I said.
    “Thank you,” said Jennifer. “Whoever this is didn’t necessarily mean it personally. It was probably just an accident.”
    Phyllis pulled herself even more upright than usual. “An accident? Purely by accident, someone is depositing clippings on pet theft and rabies and heartworm and unsafe dog toys? Purely by accident, everywhere we look, we find advertisements for pet loss counseling and brochures on the hazards of shipping our dogs by air? Well, if that’s what you think, Jennifer, then you and I have very different ideas of what constitutes an accident!”
    “No, not that,” Jennifer protested. “I just meant that it was an accident that I got that one, the one on bloat. That it was just a coincidence. That it wasn’t meant for me personally .”
    “Well, it doesn’t matter one way or the other,” Phyllis said.
    “We’re trying to decide what to do,” Jennifer informed me. “We think maybe the best thing is just to ignore it.”
    “Somebody’s just doing it for attention,” another woman said.
    “Eva Spitteler,” someone murmured.
    Jennifer nodded. “Trying to feel important. When you think about it, it’s stupid. I mean, it’s mostly just stuff from the dog magazines. We read it all the time, anyway. And there’s no way I’m going to be more