Bloodlines

is not fair! Kevin, I take pains... I don’t even use the word mutt.”
    He grunted.
    “I’ve never owned an Akita,” I said. “Or an English setter or a Keeshond. I’ve never owned a Border collie. Yet. There are hundreds of—”
    “Liar,” he said.
    “Okay! I like purebred dogs. I like goldens and malamutes and Border collies and a hundred other breeds. I like... maybe this will sound stupid, but I like who they are. And, yeah, I like the way they look, how beautiful they are. But that just makes me a dog person. Or one kind of dog person. It doesn’t make me a snob. And for your information, dog people are the least snobby people in the world.” About people, anyway. About dogs? Well, that’s complicated, but don’t judge us too harshly. I mean, has there ever been a truly classless society?
    Kevin looked up from the sink, but he said nothing. Silence is evidently an effective interrogation technique. I blundered on. “I could own a mixed breed.”
    “Big of you.”
    “It’s not like that! And besides, one of the things about pet shops is that what they’re selling is dog snobbery, if you want to call it that, only they’re ripping people off, because when most people see the signs for AKC puppies, they think they’re getting show dogs. I saw an ad somewhere that said ‘AKC certified puppies,’ for God’s sake, which is just bullshit, because all the AKC certifies is pedigrees, not dogs. And if you see the pedigree of a pet shop dog, well, if you know about dogs, all it looks like is the pedigree of a puppy mill dog. And people are paying a lot more at these goddamned pet shops than they’d pay a good breeder. Look, I’ve got a pedigree here that’ll... Let me show you.”
    I went to my study, dug out the copy I’d made of Missy’s pedigree, put it on the table, and made Kevin leave the dishes and look at it. You too, of course.
    “What this is, is a family tree,” I told him, “only you read it from left to right. It’s the ancestors of Princess Melissa Sievers.” I put a finger on Missy’s registered name. “She’s a malamute.”
    “Geez, no kidding,” Kevin said.
    “Yeah, no kidding,” I said. “She came from Puppy Luv. Now just look at the top half, above her name. That part’s her sire’s side. Yukon Duke. Her father. Okay? And above and to the right of his name is his sire, Sir Snowy the Fourth. And below and to the right is his dam, his mother, Stupid Little Sally. Classic puppy mill names. Especially that one. Obviously. Poor... anyway, the bottom half of the pedigree is her mother’s side, Icekist Sissy, and on her side, these are all famous kennel names. Famous, uh, if you know anything about malamutes. Anyway, for Puppy Luv’s prices, you ought to get the bottom half of this pedigree, but what you get is the top half, in other words, a puppy mill dog.”
    You do know how to read a pedigree, don’t you? Start at the top right. Oh, and remember that the AKC is a dog registry, not a spelling checker. Anyway, start at the top right. Sir Snowy II and S and S Queen of the Artie—yeah, Artie. These people can’t even spell—produced Sir Snowy III, who was bred to a bitch named LJS Artie Lady (Caesar the Great ex JJs Molly). Got it now? Yes, indeed, Sir Snowy IV and Stupid Little Sally had the same sire, Sir Snowy III. And the breeding of Caesar the Great to LJS Artie Lady? Well, look for yourself.

    Well, when Kevin absorbed that part, his exhausted face showed the only color I’d seen there that day. “This has got to be some kind of a mistake,” he said with cold moral outrage.
    “If it’s any comfort to you, puppy mills are notorious for lousy records,” I assured him. “The dam’s pedigree is accurate. Those are reputable breeders.”
    I filled Kevin in on a little background. Ch. Icebound Peak Experience, C.D., was owned by a psychiatrist and his wife, but maybe that’s obvious, and if you know anything about malamutes, I don’t have to mention that Ch. Happy Daze of Kaktovik was bred by Helen Drummond, whose dogs all have names like Hurricane Drummer, Halcyon Diamond, that kind of thing. The Kaktovik dogs are pure Kotzebue, the line of mals that originated at the Chinook Kennels in the nineteen thirties, and, if you’re a historian of the breed, you’ll realize that the names of two of the Beaufort dogs, Kearsage and Belle, pay homage to two dogs killed in Antarctica on the Bird expeditions. Pandora is another thirties sled dog name, of