Chow Down (A Melanie Travis Mystery)

the judge that Eve was ready to be a contender. Open Bitch was also the last of the regular classes to be judged within each breed, which meant that by the time our turn came, I would probably be a nervous wreck.
    Sam, who knew me better than anyone, took Eve’s leash out of my hands as soon as we reached the ring. Winners Dog was being judged; the competition in bitches would begin shortly.
    “Go away for a few minutes,” he said.
    “Pardon me?”
    “Shoo. Get lost.” His hand flipped up and down in the air, motioning me away. “If you stand here, you’ll begin to fidget. And if you fidget, you’ll make Eve nervous. Then both of you will begin to fall apart.”
    “You don’t even trust me to hold my own dog?”
    “It’s not a matter of trust, it’s a matter of expediency,” said Aunt Peg. “If you start fussing and knock all her hair down, Sam and I will be the ones who have to put it back up.”
    Well, there was that.
    “Here,” said Bertie, materializing beside me. “If you want to make yourself useful, you can hold one of these wild things while I go in the ring with the other.”
    She reached over and shoved a balled-up show leash into my hand. The big brown puppy that was attached to it immediately spun around, leapt up, and planted her front feet on my chest.
    “Hello!” I said, grunting slightly with the impact.
    “Her name’s Snickers,” said Bertie. “And trust me, you don’t want to encourage her.”
    I wasn’t encouraging her, I was merely trying to remain upright. That in itself was a job since the big puppy probably weighed half as much as I did. Prudently, I moved Snickers away from Eve so that her antics wouldn’t cause any damage. We walked around the side of the ring and watched Bertie show her sister.
    The best that could be said for the performance was that the puppy had a lot of fun, most of it at Bertie’s expense. Even the judge was smiling by the time she pinned the class. Bertie merely looked resigned to being run ragged by her exuberant charge. In a class of six, the two of them left without a ribbon.
    We switched puppies at the gate and Bertie went right back into the ring with Snickers. The American-Bred class had two entries. Snickers was only marginally better behaved than her littermate, and she and Bertie earned second place by default.
    I’d been concentrating so hard on watching one puppy while keeping the other out of trouble that I’d completely forgotten about the fact that Eve and I were due in the ring momentarily. Which had probably been everyone’s plan all along.
    Clutching her red ribbon, Bertie came flying out the gate and grabbed the leash I was holding. As she pulled the puppies away, Sam led Eve into place by my left side. Aunt Peg stooped down in front of my Poodle, making one last check of ears and topknot. Sam took out his comb, ran it quickly through my hair, then patted everything down into place.
    “Perfect,” he said softly.
    “You’re sure?” Butterflies, late to arrive, were now coming on full force.
    “Positive.”
    Sam was looking at me, not Eve; and I saw everything I needed to know in his eyes. God, I loved that man.
    “Go have fun,” he said.
    Nine Standard Poodle bitches were entered in the Open class. As usual, almost all of them were being handled by professionals. The majority of the entry had already filed around us and into the ring. Eve and I took our place at the end of the long line.
    Most handlers jockey for position in the front of the line. They like the psychological impact of leading right from the start. But since we’d already missed that opportunity, I decided that Eve and I would make the most of our place in the rear. We were going to make a spectacular last impression.
    Sam and Aunt Peg had done me a huge favor by coming to the show to prepare Eve for the ring, I realized. Earlier I’d been feeling a little demoralized, wounded by the fact that they hadn’t thought I was capable of doing a good enough job of grooming my own dog. But now I saw that their help had freed me to concentrate on the one important thing I had to do that day: showing off my Poodle to the judge to the best of my ability.
    Maybe I’d never have the handling skill that Aunt Peg possessed. Certainly I’d never have Sam’s flair. But what I was taking into the ring with me that day was an all-encompassing knowledge of the Poodle at the end of my leash.
    The other handlers in the ring were professionals. They hadn’t been