Bloodlines

metal folding chairs face a podium. In these chairs sit men and women with the brave, ravaged faces of recovering addicts. It is my turn to testify. My left hand clutches spasmodically as I grab at a nonexistent leash. I step forward and face the audience.
    “My name is Holly,” I say. “And I am a dogaholic.”
    What I really need isn’t Dogaholics Anonymous, but Dog Spenders Anonymous, a self-help organization devoted to squelching the compulsion to throw away money on canine paraphernalia. Just put me within spending distance of the concession booths at a dog show, and the urge overwhelms me. How does anyone resist? If your dog does great, well, naturally, you have to celebrate. If he does miserably, you both deserve a little consolation, don’t you? And if you don’t even have a dog entered that day? If you’re stewarding? Or just wandering around? Well, then, you don’t even have a ribbon, never mind a trophy, to take home, do you? After all, this is not just anywhere, is it? This is a dog show. No one leaves empty-handed.
    Thus, Sunday afternoon found Rowdy and me studying leashes in the depths of the Cherrybrook booth at the Shawsheen Valley Kennel Club’s annual AKC dog show and obedience trial. The show site was the Northeast Trade Center, which is just off Route 128 in Woburn and not in the Shawsheen Valley, but clubs have a hard time finding places to hold shows, especially indoor shows. Except when transfigured by several thousand gorgeous show dogs, the Northeast Trade Center is an unprepossessing structure that looks like an abandoned single-story, flat-roofed post-World War II factory. As a show site, though, it’s not bad. Dogs are, of course, allowed, and the interior space is open and fairly large. Also, the location is convenient, and the place is easy to find. In fact, if you’ve ever taken Route I-95 through Massachusetts, you’ve passed it, because I-95 is what everyone around here calls 128, America’s Technology Highway. Even if you’re coming from out of state, you can’t miss the site: Just take the Woburn exit, Route 38, turn into the shopping mall, follow the little road that runs parallel to the highway, and you’ll end up in the parking lot.
    As I was saying, having once again failed to qualify in Open—yes, once again, the long sit—Rowdy and I were prowling around the Cherrybrook booth in search of consolation. So far, I’d accumulated a beautiful new rolled-leather collar that Rowdy didn’t need, an identical but slightly smaller collar that Kimi didn’t need either, a fourteen-ounce container of Redi-Liver treats (for the unbeatable price of thirteen dollars and thirty cents), a bottle of coat conditioner, and (at a mere eight dollars and seventy-five cents each, less than half the pet shop list price) two large-size Nylafloss dental devices.
    I was fingering a handsome bright red leash that hung with hundreds of other leashes in all colors, widths, lengths, and materials, when a tiny, wiry woman with a mobile face and a head of short white curls popped up next to Rowdy like an elf materializing at the side of a tame wolf and said, “Rotten luck!”
    Betty usually wears bright-colored warm-up suits that make her look like a heavily wrinkled but exceptionally agile stretch-suit-clad infant. That afternoon, though, Betty was spiffed up for the breed ring: tweed suit, lacy white blouse, patterned black stockings, black flats. You might guess that Betty Burley would own one pampered apricot toy poodle or an adorable little Pomeranian, but as I’ve mentioned, she’s been breeding, showing, and rescuing malamutes for decades.
    “Thank you,” I said. “I don’t feel too bad about it. I know he can do it. Right now, it’s mostly a matter of being patient.”
    If you know anything about obedience, you’ll realize that since Rowdy was in Open, the obedience class you enter for a C.D.X., Companion Dog Excellent title, he already had his C.D. The obedience ring has always been a struggle for him. He got his C.D. with scores that are nothing to brag about, and, although he loved the jumping and retrieving in Open and was capable of better scores than he’d achieved in Novice, the problem we faced now was qualifying at all. In breed, though, Rowdy is a natural. Anyway, one legacy of Rowdy’s career in conformation is his adoration of breed handlers, all of whom carry liver and other goodies to bait their dogs in the ring and most of whom, Rowdy had discovered, could