Bloodlines

there against that wall. See where that deerhound is? In back of there and a little to the left.”
    As soon as Betty left, a group of four or five people I didn’t know approached the counter, spread out their lunches, and began talking about the same thing that was scaring everyone else at the show. Before I tell you what they were saying, I want to make sure that, in case you’re a newcomer, you understand something about show people: This is not only the most diverse group of people you can imagine, but one of the least violent, philandering, or otherwise trouble-prone groups you’ll ever encounter. We’re too busy training and grooming dogs, cleaning out kennels, whelping puppies, driving to shows, and earning our dogs’ keep to get into mischief' We aren’t any more morally upright than anyone else; we just don’t have time.
    With that preface, let me now report that a heavily muscled, bristle-headed guy leaned across the greasy linoleum counter, pointed a sausage-shaped finger at a plump, vigorous elderly woman, and growled, “One of them releases a dog of mine, and I’ll give ’em a lesson liberation. I’ll liberate ’em back to the fucking Stone Age.”
     

7
     

     
    According to a couple of recent surveys, the two most popular dog names in America are Lady and Max. Other favorites include Brandy, Shadow, Duke, Bear, Rocky, Princess, and Bandit. Food names are trendy now—Sushi, Twinkie. We seem to be naming our dogs after what we devour. If so, the next à la mode canine appellation in Cambridge is going to be Baby Greens. In Cambridge right now, if you aren’t going to serve a mixture of tiny, tender collard leaves, kale, beet greens, endive, and radicchio barely sautéed in hot olive oil, you might just as well proclaim your total rejection of fashion by dishing up a totally passé quiche Lorraine or beef Stroganoff. If we are what we eat, the residents of Cambridge are fast becoming infantile and wilted.
    The point about mixed baby greens, though, is to illustrate the mysterious but intimate connection between people and dogs: At the exact moment the tiny leaf craze hit Cambridge, a parallel phenomenon sprang up in dogdom, namely, the lamb and rice fad. Every major manufacturer of dog food is now scrambling to set lamb and rice on the market. A couple of years ago, when everyone in Cambridge was dining on fresh pasta and warm goat cheese, the only dogs in America who’d so much as sniffed lamb and rice were allergy-prone canines on bland diets. Now, all of a sudden, you’re apt to be accused of endangering your dog’s health and well-being if you’re feeding him anything else. Why lamb and rice? Well, why baby greens? And, more importantly, what’s the connection? I mean, if the latest human food fad had been something Greek or Middle Eastern, you could understand it: a use for the leftovers. As it is, the human-canine bond is mysterious indeed.
    Without entirely abandoning my obsession with this miraculous interspecies link, let me return to the subject of dog names. Lois Metzler grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. Icekist, her kennel name, wasn’t twangy or southern, and her dogs were New England Kotzebues, but their names reflected Lois’s origins in the country music capital of the world: Icekist Cheating Heart, Honkytonk Angel, that kind of thing. Lois was a Hank Williams fan, of course. Cheating Heart, one of the dogs she’d brought to the Shawsheen Valley show, had gone Winners Bitch that morning.
    Ordinarily, then, Lois Metzler would’ve been in a moderately good mood, and she probably had been until Betty Burley broke the news about Missy. I’d given Betty ten or fifteen minutes alone with Lois. Rowdy and I had wandered around collecting free samples of lamb and rice dog food at the lams and Natural Life booths. Rowdy had attempted to augment our stock of free samples: He’d tried to snatch a mouthful of trail mix from one of the open bins at a concession stand that sold cashews, jelly beans, dried apricots, and other nuts, fruits, and candies for people, but I’d managed to haul him away in time. Then we’d plowed through the crowds to the area by the wall where Lois and Betty were set up.
    Lois Metzler must’ve been acquainted with the theory that the handler should disappear in the ring to allow the dog to put himself forward, but I guess if you’re five feet ten inches tall and weigh as much as three of four Alaskan malamutes, disappearance isn’t a realistic