Bloodlines

heart leaped. “Leah?” I asked eagerly. “Long curly red hair? Where’d...?”
    But Lois was shaking her head. “Uh-uh. Dark hair. Long.” She paused, obviously fishing for a euphemism. “Damp looking.”
    Oily? Janice has light hair, and one good thing to be said about her is that she is clean. My heart began to pound, and I broke out in a sweat. Yes, a sweat. Sure, horses sweat, men perspire, and ladies glisten, but a lady who’s lost her dog is an animal.
    “Where did they go?” I yelled at Lois and added, as though I’d been unclear the first time, “Which way did they go?” If Lois had been a dog, I’d have grabbed the scruff of her fat neck with both my hands and administered a hard shakedown. As it was, I glared at her and spat out: “Lois, God damn it, you have just given Rowdy to some stranger! Where are they?” Don’t ask me how I expected her to know. Then the obvious finally hit me: Lois had no idea. “For Christ’s sake,” I pleaded, “help me! Help me look for him!”
    My ears pounded with the words of advice I’d offered my readers again and again: Never leave your dog unattended at a show. Never. But I hadn’t left Rowdy unattended. I’d left him with Lois Metzler, a malamute breeder, a responsible person, someone who knew as well as I did that vicious, greedy people will steal show dogs. Dognappers will hold them for ransom. Puppy mill operators will match them with AKC papers and breed them. Wolf hybridizers won’t care about papers, but they’ll sure go for a malamute, especially an obvious stud like Rowdy, beautiful and wolflike, gentle and friendly. And the liberationists, the animal rights lunatics! I’d heard all the rumors and had passed along the warnings. Rowdy would be easy prey, swishing his tail, making eyes, playing up to everyone. An unknown crated dog could’ve turned protective, might’ve growled and bitten, but Rowdy would’ve been a no-risk steal. And, to someone who knew nothing about dogs, Rowdy would have looked so damned natural, as if he could fend for himself once he’d been freed from the bonds of human exploitation. Released. Turned loose. Manumitted. Liberated. Right next to 1-95.
    In my sprint for the nearest exit, I shoved past a massive Kuvasz, barely missed crushing a brace of Maltese, crashed into a blessedly forgiving Newfie, and narrowly missed tripping over a darling Cairn and plunging down onto a German shorthaired pointer. In my terror, I fixed on a mad idea: Why hadn’t I just dashed off to Sally Brand? Rowdy belonged where’d he never be lost, on my skin, under it, permanently inked and linked to me. What did it matter where? On my back, on my arm, or inside my ear like the ID number on a French dog.
    As I neared the cafeteria, though, I spotted a crowd of people and dogs in an area away from the show rings, and I heard what I’m now convinced are the most beautiful words in the English language. They aren’t cellar door, of course, and they aren’t what my fellow writer, Dorothy Parker, said, either: Check enclosed. If your partner and soul mate has vanished at a show, the most beautiful words in the English language are loose dog. “Loose dog!” voices called out. “Loose dog!”
    One of the worst and best things about being a supposed expert on dogs is that your own dogs, the ones you presumably understand best, teach you over and over again that you know nothing at all. I pushed and squirmed through the crowd around the concession stand. From Rowdy’s point of view—evidently situated in his stomach—he’d done the obvious. Before I caught sight of him, I heard the trail mix crunch under my feet. The guy who held Rowdy’s leash was a jovial, ursine young Rottie-owner I’d noticed now and then in the obedience rings. I’d always liked his happy, easygoing manner with his dogs, and I liked it now with Rowdy. The two of them made me think of some corny children’s movie about a bear and wolf who become pals. They beamed at one another, the man obviously proud to be the hero who’d caught the loose dog. Dogs do get loose at shows by accident, of course. Exhibitors sometimes forget to latch the crates, and there are a few notorious canine Houdinis who’ve figured out how to escape from anything. Once loose, though, most of those dogs are terrified: disoriented, bewildered, scared silly, sometimes outright panicked. Not Rowdy, though. The opportunistic show-off had grabbed the chance for an unexpected feast and was