This Dog for Hire

years, ever since I got into basenjis. He’s fabulous. I wish I could get him to handle one of my dogs, but he’s much too expensive for me.”
    “Morgan Gilmore? I heard so much about him, uh, from Dashiell’s handler, but I never met him. Is he here?”
    She took another look at Dashiell, frowning. Of course, pit bulls are not AKC-registerable dogs, so if she knew the difference between a pit bull and an Am Staff, she would have wondered what the hell I was talking about. UKC handlers would be totally unlikely to also work at AKC shows, and if Dash had a handler, which he didn’t, he probably would have no idea who Morgan Gilmore was.
    “He’s over there, see, red shirt, ponytail?”
    “Great chatting with you,” I said, and headed back to Dennis.
    “Here,” I said when I had squeezed through the crowd and arrived at his side. I handed him Dashiell’s leash. “I’ll be back soon and explain.” J signaled Dashiell to wait, and began shoving my way to where Morgan Gilmore was standing.
    When I got close enough to eavesdrop, I pretended to study out, damned spot, which hung starting to his left and continuing down that wall. He was talking to two men about Westminster, which was now j only a few days away. It is always held on the second Monday and Tuesday of February, and the hound group goes up on Tuesday. Since Magritte had been found, he would, of course, be shown. I couldn’t hear everything, only snippets. “. . . the best front of any dog on the circuit today.”
    “Schedules are never a problem—”
    “—with that topline! Please!”
    “—very typey...”
    “—the epitome of his breed.” All the usual dog show bullshit.
    “Hi,” I said when I could finally get his attention.
    I was now close enough to see that he was one of those guys who have five o’clock shadow by ten-thirty in the morning. He was oddly shaped, tall and thin, but you could see the bulge of a potbelly pushing out his shiny red shirt, as if he had swallowed a casaba melon whole. His hair was seriously receding, but he had let the back grow long, and he did indeed have a ponytail. And he wore a string tie and cowboy boots. My guess was that they were his signature.
    “Uh, what’s her name,” I gestured into the centre of the gallery, “Tiffany’s mom—”
    “Aggie-
    “Right! Aggie said you might be able to help me out. I have a basenji bitch,” I said. Morgan Gilmore’s smile cranked up to 150 watts, and he bunched his shoulders and head toward me in a mockery of sincerity and interest. “She’s pointed, of course. She just needs one more major”—I bet he never heard that before, but man, if he could toss it, so could I—“but I think I’d like to breed her this spring”—I took an audible breath and let it out, the way you breathe when you’re twelve if someone mentions the name of a rock star—“to Magritte. He’s got the best front. Just perfect.” Morgan Gilmore beamed. “No problem,” he said. He reached two bony fingers into his breast pocket and withdrew his card. The logo was a beagle puppy sitting next to a cowboy boot. Talk about non sequiturs!
    “Do you specialize in the hound group?”
    “I’ll handle anything ,” he told me, and for once I thought he was telling the absolute truth. “So, little lady, just call me when your girl’s cycle starts, and we’ll arrange everything. No problem.”
    He had no questions to ask me. Not one. He didn’t even ask for a recent brucellosis test, the very least thing you’d want before any breeding, since brucellosis causes sterility in both dogs and bitches and is nearly impossible to cure. But, hey, this is not to say the man wasn’t careful. He probably only bred Magritte to “qualified bitches,” as the ads always say. “qualified” meaning he’d get paid in advance.
    “Well, what about his show schedule and all?” I asked. “Will scheduling Crystal’s breeding be problem?”
    “Well”—he paused and laughed intimately, since we were such good friends—“you know basenjis. They can be a handful, can’t they? They don’t always get along that well, even males and female. I’m sure your, um—”
    “Crystal.”
    “I’m sure your Crystal is a dream girl, but I’ve seen some nasty bitches, and I can’t take a chance my little boy will get hurt.”
    My little boy!
    “So I just avoid the dangers of shipping, possible dogfights, or missed breedings because of Magritte’s show schedule. None of this is a