The Wicked Flea

vehicle, a beige van owned by a couple who also have Shiba Inus and were probably showing their Shibas today and not their malamutes. Like a lot of the other vans, minivans, cars, and motor homes in the lot, this one was plastered with breed-proud bumper stickers and warnings against tailgating. Paintings of purebred dogs adorned the sides of vehicles and the covers of rear-mounted spare tires, and here and there, exhibitors walked the real thing—show dogs of every size, color, and coat, giant, toy, red, white, black, brindle, smooth-coated, rough-coated, and even almost-no-coated hairless breeds like the Chinese crested, dogs all, great and small, bright and beautiful.
    Oh my. With one exception. The oversized male golden retriever caught my eye, not only because goldens always catch my eye, but because every once in a while, a misinformed owner turns up in the show ring with an embarrassingly pet-quality dog. This poor dog sure was one. Finding an empty slot, I turned in, killed the engine, and studied the unfortunate animal, who had the same combination of a grotesquely overdeveloped front and a pitifully weak rear I’d noticed the second I’d seen Zsa Zsa. This dog, however, was tall and rangy, and in contrast to Zsa Zsa, he’d been kept lean. Still, he was horribly unsound and, in terms of the AKC standard, horribly incorrect, with a narrow skull, long ears, and a few dozen other serious faults. But his height was a disqualifying fault, that is, a mortal as opposed to merely venial fault, one that renders a dog ineligible for competition. A male golden is supposed to measure twenty-three to twenty-four inches at the withers. (Remember the withers? On the back, above the front legs.) The standard for the breed gives a bit of leeway, one inch in either direction, but this dog was at least twenty-seven inches. In terms of breed competition, he might as well have had no tail or three heads. If his owners tried to show him, they’d experience anything from mild humiliation to profound mortification.
    As my thoughts turned to the owners, I finally took a good look at the people who accompanied the dog,-and was astonished to realize that although I hadn’t actually seen the dog before, I’d seen his picture in the newspaper. The article about the Trask family? The people suing S & I’s for supposedly serving them filth in an order of fries? Yes, the very same rotten schemers who’d practically gone out of their way to feed the dirty, disgusting caudal appendage of a loathsome rodent to my beautiful Kimi! What on earth were they doing at a dog show?
    The weather, I might mention, was, for once, seasonably cold. The temperature must have been in the high twenties, and the gray sky seemed to reflect the dull blackness of the asphalt. The little Trask girls, Diana and Fergie, wore matching pink polyester coats, probably bought for Easter Sunday. Neither child wore a hat or mittens. I got out of the car and headed toward the family, who, by unhappy coincidence, stood next to two open dumpsters overflowing with trash. Crows or roving animals had torn open the big green plastic bags that were piled next to the dumpsters. Litter blew around the Trasks and their dog, as if twisting their name in order to make a cruel judgment. In unintended protest, the dog was lifting his leg on one of the trash bags. As he lowered the leg, I approached the family. The older man, the one I guessed to be the grandfather, had been missing from the newspaper photo, but he was here today, and his face had the same alert expression I’d noticed before. The parents, Timothy and Brianna, had the washed-out, worn-out look I remembered. When the little girls smiled at me, there was no indication that they’d finally visited a dentist. I felt terrible. Rowdy and Kimi had strong white teeth, in part because our grooming sessions included dental care; I routinely scaled their teeth. If the dogs hadn’t cooperated, I’d have had their teeth professionally cleaned. And here were these little children with their teeth— their baby teeth!—rotting out of their heads! The sight melted my rage. Besides sparing the children my anger, there was almost nothing I could do to make life easier for them. Almost. There was one small thing. If the Trasks intended to show this awful-looking dog today, I could try to save the little girls the pain of listening to strangers disparage their pet.
    “I’m Holly Winter,” I said, directing my words mainly