Evil Breeding

Morris and Essex, was “the greatest dog show of all time.” In 1941 it was “the world’s greatest canine congress.” Interestingly enough, in those years, Mrs. Dodge was always the “president” of Morris and Essex; after the war, when the shows resumed on a limited scale, she was the show’s “sponsor.” Furthermore, those who assisted her, the other officers of the club and the men who managed her kennels, became her “lieutenants.” Was I making much of nothing? Possibly so. Beginning in 1946, when Morris and Essex resumed, a new byline appeared, that of John Rendel, who likened the show to a country fair, a carnival, and a circus, steps down, it seemed to me, from Ilsley’s metaphors. But maybe Rendel was less extravagant than Ilsley; maybe the new tone reflected nothing more than a change in the correspondent who covered the event. And, of course, after the war, the show, in fact, never recaptured its prewar size and splendor.
    But of the tone during the hiatus, during the war, I had no doubt, especially because the byline was consistently Henry Ilsley’s. In 1943, according to Ilsley, exhibitors were “hungry for shows,” and many dog clubs, including Westminster and Eastern, met the demand, whereas Morris and Essex did not. The difficulties were considerable. Gas rationing, for example, impeded travel to shows. Indeed, Morris and Essex was not the only club to cancel, and small-time exhibitors, the “little fellows,” as the Times called them, sometimes found it impossible to show. In 1943 there were thirty-four fewer dog shows than there’d been the year before, and the number of entries dropped as well. Furthermore, a ruling of the War Committee on Conventions limiting shows to exhibitors and dogs from local areas directly conflicted with an established rule of the American Kennel Club stating that if entries were restricted, no championship points could be awarded. In 1945 the AKC lifted 'hat rule for the duration of the war; as the Times proclaimed, dog shows were thus “saved.”
    Some things never change; I knew exactly how dog people had felt. From the viewpoint of the hard-core dog-show person, the aficionado, the distinction between the salvation of dog shows and the salvation of Western civilization had been nonexistent. What was freedom for, anyway? Life, liberty, and the pursuit of championship points!
    And how had Geraldine R. Dodge contributed to the effort to make the world safe for dog shows? And for the other hallmarks of peace? The answer was plain: Just when her grand show, Morris and Essex, was needed as a morale-boosting model of bold opposition to the forces of evil, she had, in effect, rolled belly up to the enemy and remained belly up for the duration of the war.
    And before the war, had she done worse than that? Morris and Essex had, I thought, offered the opportunity for agents of the Third Reich to slip back and forth between Nazi Germany and the United States in the guise of innocent dog people. But had that potential become a reality? I couldn’t believe that Mrs. Dodge had been knowingly complicitous in treason. Had she been an unknowing accomplice?
    In cultivating suspicions about Nazi infiltrators, I had, at a minimum, caught the national paranoia of the wartime years. That anti-Dodge letter to the Times ? February 2, 1942. Printed next to it was a letter reporting the removal, presumably by vandals, of the signs marking the first three miles of the Doodletown Ski Trail on Bear Mountain, New York. Park authorities would now have to replace the signs. Would the Times remind its readers to leave the new signs alone? Honestly, if you want to caution vandals against repeating their misdeeds, why address the civilized, well-behaved readers of the New York Times ? But what interested me was the editorial note that appeared after the letter. “It sounds like sabotage on the Doodletown trail,” wrote the Times. “Watch out for fifth columnists on skis.”
    “And if on skis,” I said to Rowdy and Kimi, “why not in the show ring? If on skis, why not behind a judge’s badge? Why not on the wrong end of a leash?”
     

Chapter Fifteen
     
    “I AM SHOCKED!” Rita thumped her wineglass on my
    I coffee table. We were, for once, sitting in my living room instead of at the kitchen table. “Holly, I have a cousin who went to Elmira College!”
    “It’s no reflection on your family,” I assured Rita. “Besides, it happened a long time ago. Elmira College has