Bloodlines

thing, you’ll remember that the Class A dealers appear in the front section of the booklet, the Class B dealers at the back, and that, in each section, the names are listed alphabetically within each state. Consequently, you can’t just look under Simms, Walter to find out whether he’s licensed and, if so, where he does business. No, if you want to be thorough, you start with the Class A dealers, and you check through Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, and so forth for forty-one pages of single-space type with one dealer per line. Then you do the Class B dealers. They’re easier: only thirteen pages. By then, you have a headache and a heartache. In an attempt to spare my eyes and my soul, I checked the A and B lists for the New England States first, but I didn’t find Walter Simms. Then I turned back to the A dealers in Alabama and went through every single state. When I’d finished the A dealers, I did the B dealers. Walter Simms didn’t have a USDA license. Neither, by the way, did Bill or Janice Coakley.
    Finally, feeling something like one of Enzio Guarini’s soldiers, I called the don of my family, namely, my father, who lives in Owls Head, Maine, where I grew up. In the dozen or so years since my mother died, though, Buck has transformed the place. My parents raised and trained golden retrievers. Marissa was also a dedicated gardener who labored over her perennial borders. The peonies have survived, and so have some lupins, but the only day lilies left are the orange ones she never really liked. Her beloved delphiniums vanished in a few years. Buck took her death very hard. What yanked him out of his despondency was his discovery of wolf dog hybrids, which, I am delighted to report, he has now quit breeding. The last litter (Clyde ex Millie) was whelped a while ago, and Buck refused to sell any of those pups or any of his adult wolf dogs, either. Also, he’s built a ten-foot security fence around the once-red barn. In Marissa’s day, the harn was a model kennel building—she paved the outdoor runs herself—and the inside has held up pretty well, but from the outside, the place now looks like a correctional facility for canines convicted of white-collar crimes.
    But the great news isn’t the increasing disrepair of the place, the permanent neglect of the garden, the appearance of the ten-foot fence, or the apparent cessation of wolf dog breeding. Buck hasn’t actually sworn off wolves, at least not yet, but he has finally returned to the fold, which is to say that he not only worships his halfgrown golden retriever puppy, Mandy, but has rediscovered dog shows, matches, and obedience trials. He never stopped attending them, but I’m sure he’d forgotten the thrill of entering. By the way, in case you ever spot him in the ring, let me warn you that he’s not the trainer and handler Marissa was. She taught him a lot, though. Also, even before the current attention-training craze (Watch me! Ready? Ready, ready? Watch me, watch me!), Buck understood the principle that you get what you give. “A handler always ends up with the dog he deserves.” Slogan of the Royal Air Force Dog Training School. When my father trains a dog, he’s so overwhelmingly present that no matter where the dog turns his attention, there’s Buck again.
    “So,” I said to my father, “how are you?”
    He answered like the real dog person he is; he bragged about Mandy. “This is undoubtedly the most remarkable obedience prospect to set paw upon God’s green earth in the last decade,” he proclaimed.
    I refrained from mentioning Vinnie.
    Buck continued. “This little Mandy character is the most alert, curious, bright-eyed creature... never takes her eyes off my face. Did I tell you how she did at her first match?”
    “First place in Pre-Novice. That’s really wonderful. Another Winter Wonder,” I blurted out. That’s what everyone called my mother’s dogs, Winter Wonders— they were, too—but the words brought Marissa back so vividly that my eyes watered. I shouldn’t have spoken the phrase aloud, not to my father.
    To my surprise, though, Buck seemed flattered. He thanked me. Then he kept on bragging about Mandy» who is, by the way, almost as perfect as Buck claims.
    “Future DOGworld, huh?” I said.
    Stranger around here? A DOGworld obedience award requires earning all three obedience titles within twelve months or earning a C.D., C.D.X., or U.D.— Utility Dog title—in three consecutive trials with a score of