Chow Down (A Melanie Travis Mystery)

laugh. And not entirely succeeding, I might add. “Davey entered Faith in a dog chow contest and now you have to spend your summer chauffeuring her around to auditions?”
    “Something like that.” The prospect didn’t sound any more appealing now than it had two days earlier when I’d finished speaking to Doug Allen.
    Bertie was a dear friend and my sister-in-law, having married my younger brother, Frank, two years earlier. She was also a professional dog handler and mother to six-month-old Maggie. Like most women I knew, she was habitually overcommitted and overworked, and occasionally underappreciated.
    Bertie, however, multitasked with aplomb. Now she was combing out the topknot on a Miniature Poodle, looking over the day’s schedule that was taped to the inside of her grooming box, and making fun of me. Simultaneously.
    Oh, did I forget to mention that we were at a dog show? Well, we were. It was Saturday and we were gathered at the Mid-Hudson Kennel Club event in Dutchess County, New York, where Bertie had a dozen dogs entered in nearly as many different breeds. As for me, I was hanging out and helping her groom. Though Eve still needed a major to finish her championship, I had elected not to show her.
    One of the good things about being an owner-handler is that if you don’t approve of a judge’s knowledge or credentials, you can decline to enter. Professional handlers don’t have that luxury. They show—rain or shine, week in and week out—exhibiting their clients’ dogs in front of experts and buffoons alike.
    Some days they look like heroes. Other times they go home with almost nothing to show for a long day’s hard work. It was a tough way to make a living, but Bertie thrived on the competition. Plus she was very good at what she did.
    When Bertie and I met several years earlier, Aunt Peg and I were showing Standard Poodles and Bertie was showing almost anything but. Like many of the terrier breeds, there are exacting requirements for the upkeep and presentation of Poodles’ coats. They’re a specialized breed, not for those who lack patience or artistic talent.
    The previous summer, however, Bertie had attended the Poodle Club of America national specialty, fallen in love with the breed, and decided that Aunt Peg and I were going to teach her everything she needed to know about Poodle hair. Along the way, that had evolved into our current situation, where I was working as Bertie’s part-time assistant at the shows, and Aunt Peg was overseeing our efforts with her usual imperious elan. Fortunately, for the sake of our relationship and my sanity, I refused to take my position as underling very seriously.
    “So how good is this Chow Down stuff anyway?” Deftly Bertie parted the hair on the Mini’s head with a knitting needle and began the process of putting in the tight, show ring topknot. “I’ve never even heard of it.”
    “It’s a brand new product.” I was working on a Standard Poodle that belonged to one of Bertie’s clients, scissoring the long hair in his mane coat as he stood atop a rubber matted grooming table. “I don’t know if anybody’s tried it yet, except the groups they’ve test-marketed it to.”
    “Sounds yummy,” said a voice from the next setup. “Chow Down. What self-respecting dog wouldn’t want to dive right into a bowl of that ?”
    The voice, and the arch delivery, belonged to Terry Denunzio. He was partners with one of the top Poodle handlers in the Northeast, Crawford Langley, and the two of them were frequent competitors of ours.
    We often set up next to one another at the shows, as Terry was always entertaining to be around. He’d never seen an occasion he couldn’t turn into a party. Even Crawford, who was quite a bit older and supremely dignified, had finally begun to turn a benevolent eye toward his handsome partner’s shenanigans.
    Bearing that in mind, I wondered what the handler thought about Terry’s current outfit. Usually impeccably dressed, today Terry had veered off the straight and narrow and was heading directly toward camp. His muted plaid shirt was crisply ironed, his silk tie a complementary shade of steel blue. But inexplicably he’d wound a lavender feather boa around his neck.
    Every few minutes a stray breeze would waft under the grooming tent and the feathers would ripple and lift into his mouth. Unfazed, Terry would spit them out and keep grooming. If he wasn’t going to acknowledge the eccentricity of his attire, I