The Dogfather (13 page)

The American Kennel Club expects handlers to be properly attired. Men wear suits or sport coats. Women wear dresses or pants outfits. For once, I’m not in jeans and a T-shirt, but my navy cords and white cotton sweater are too informal for the breed ring. Beneath Mary’s lab coat is a black dress that matches her dog’s dark coat. The red-piped jacket that goes with the dress is in a dry cleaner’s bag on top of Mr. Wookie’s crate. Leah has on a white silk blouse and a short navy blue pleated skirt. Her red blazer will remain in its plastic bag until the last minute. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch sight of two professional handlers, Derek Slate and Rob Leist, and I dash after them, but neither is free to handle Rowdy, and neither knows anyone who is. I return to find that Leah, bless her, has Rowdy on the table and is spritzing him with water and fluffing him with a Mason-Pearson brush and a powerful stream of air from our dryer. Mary, meanwhile, is misting Mr. Wookie with water and touching up his already perfect coat with a metal comb.

Eager for a few grooming tips, are you? I’d spill all the secrets, but sooner or later I’d still have to get to the matter of my moral compromise. I am deeply ashamed to have had any part in what happened in the ring. I accept full responsibility. I am heartily sorry.

CHAPTER 13

That day’s malamute judge, Harry Howland, was the head of a family business that manufactured and distributed the kinds of cardboard containers used for takeout pizza and pastry. Ironically, it’s possible that Harry Howland’s company was the very one that had made the pastry box containing Enzio Guarini’s Kimi-filched cannoli. But for once, these so-called coincidences
(dog
spelled backward) are irrelevant. What you need to know about Harry Howland is, first, that he was an AKC judge and, second, that he knew my father and had known my late mother, who bred top-winning golden retrievers and was a Power in the Dog Fancy. In case you don’t show dogs, let me briefly explain that the American Kennel Club not only expects its judges to be treated with the utmost in courtesy and respect, but with the goal of seeing these happy expectations fulfilled, publishes disciplinary guidelines that spell out the nasty consequences of displaying rudeness, disrespect, or worse toward an AKC judge. For example, aggravated physical abuse of a judge can get you a fine of $5,000 and the suspension of AKC privileges for ten years. More to the point—the point toward which we are, alas, heading—the offense of attempting to influence a judge carries a standard penalty of a $500 fine and an 18-month suspension of privileges. Suspension of AKC privileges: For the duration, you can’t show a dog or do much else that counts in life, especially in my life. As to Harry Howland’s acquaintance with my parents, Mr. Howland... well, we’re about to get to that.

But let’s start at the beginning of Harry Howland’s judging of my breed, the Alaskan malamute, which took place as scheduled in Ring 7 and was about to begin only about ten minutes late, which is to say, at about 9:10. Within the sacred precincts of the baby-gated ring, Harry Howland and his stewards were busy with paperwork, and at the judge’s table, a few handlers were still picking up armbands. Harry Howland was a tall, silver-haired man of distinguished appearance who so thoroughly looked the part of an AKC judge that his photograph appeared in educational materials about the judging of dog shows distributed by the AKC. I did not look distinguished. Having failed to find someone else to handle Rowdy for me, I’d not only picked up his armband, but fastened it on my left upper arm over the sleeve of my red blazer, which was actually Leah’s. In a doomed effort to look properly dressed, I’d convinced her that she’d be fine in her white silk blouse and navy-blue pleated skirt and that I needed the blazer more than she did. “You hate red,” I’d pointed out. “You never wear it. You think it looks awful with your hair.”

“It looks beautiful with her hair,” Mary had said.

“True,” I’d said. “But Leah doesn’t think so.”

I'd brushed my hair, applied blush and lipstick, donned the blazer, and reconciled myself to handling Rowdy myself if my ringside efforts to find a handler failed, as they had. As to the armband, maybe I need to note the sportsmanlike fiction that the judge has no idea of the identities of dogs and handlers, each dog being identified only by the number on the handler’s armband and the judge being prohibited from looking at the show catalog, which publishes the names of the dogs together with their corresponding numbers. In reality, even as small worlds go, this one is minuscule. Judges recognize dogs and handlers because they’ve seen them everywhere, in the ring and in ads in dog magazines.

Now, as Leah, Kimi, Mary, Mr. Wookie, Rowdy, and I stood outside Ring 7 with a lot of other handlers and malamutes, as well as a small crowd of spectators, I said, mainly to myself, “After all, I
am
an experienced handler. What’s the worst that can happen?”

Leah said, “You could faint or throw up.”

"I’m not woozy, and my stomach is okay.”

Leah continued. “Rowdy could get in a fight, or you could trip and fall on your face.”

"The two of you!” Mary was misting Mr. Wookie’s coat and fluffing him up here and there with a small pin brush that bore his portrait on the back. Mr. Wookie was voicing a highly inflected opinion. Although his vocalizations sounded strangely like the word
no,
he was clearly expressing his ardent desire to get in the ring and win: “Let’s go!”

As Mary was replying to Mr. Wookie, I glanced at the judge’s table and saw to my horror that Harry Howland was standing by the gate in conversation with—oh no!— Al Favuzza. Having dispatched the horrible twins and Zap the Driver on errands, I’d finally rid us of Favuzza by sending him off to buy a new show lead. Show leads are thin leashes that come in a zillion styles and materials. The nylon ones are available in dozens of colors. With luck, I’d thought, the vampire would linger over a bewildering display and then be unable to find us because we’d have moved from the grooming area to ringside. Hah! Here he was. Worse, here he was talking to Harry Howland.

Noting Favuzza, Leah said, “He’s probably asking where we are. He wouldn’t know not to do that. You know, Holly, when I saw him at the Museum of Fine Arts, it was just so sad. He didn’t actually ask me for directions. He asked me how to get in, and finally I realized that he didn’t know that all he had to do was walk in and pay. Can you imagine a person who doesn’t realize that the museum is open to the public? It’s terrible that anyone would feel so disenfranchised.”

“Disenfranchised!” I didn’t share Leah’s egalitarian interpretation. Favuzza was probably planning to rob the museum. “Leah,” I said, “I don’t like the way he looks at you. Stay away from him.”

She laughed. “That’s ridiculous! He’s a middle-aged man. All of a sudden, you’re a paranoid snob?”

“I am
not
a snob, and I am
not
paranoid.” Fleeing the repulsive image of Leah as the object of Favuzza’s interest, I changed the subject. “This is one of the puppy classes, right?”

Male puppies. As I’ve mentioned in passing, the judging of dog-show classes is not coed. The boys go first. I don’t mind: I’ve so used to the system that I expect to arrive at the Pearly Gates and hang around while St. Peter judges the men. Without doubt, I’ll get there with a spray bottle of water in one hand and a brush in the other, and I’ll mist my own hair and pretty it up just as I was now spritzing and stroking Rowdy’s coat. The entry will presumably be larger than today’s malamute entry, which, although small, was decent for our part of the country. The total number of malamutes entered was twenty-two, with ten in the dog classes, seven in the bitch classes, and the remainder, including Rowdy and Mr. Wookie, in Best of Breed. It was unlikely that everyone would show up.

Unfortunately, the people who showed up in my immediate vicinity were not malamute exhibitors, but the entire crew of mobsters, led by Al Favuzza, who said, “What are you waiting for?” Favuzza’s line of work, I thought, had left him sadly unable to delay gratification.

“My turn,” I said. “The ones in the ring now are class dogs, meaning that they aren’t champions. They’re competing for championship points. Rowdy’s finished. He has to wait until after the class dogs and then the class bitches are judged. Then there’ll be a sort of grand finale, with the winners from the classes—and the champions. The judge picks his Best of Breed, Best of Opposite Sex, and Best of Winners, which could be... well, let’s just say that at the moment we’re waiting for Kimi’s turn.”

In case it seems as if I’ve disparaged AKC judges with my talk about the polite fiction of numbered armbands and so on, let me say that judging is hard work. AKC judges have to follow a prescribed protocol, do their AKC paperwork correctly, and keep to a schedule that allots only a few minutes to evaluate each dog. New judges are expected to do twenty dogs per hour; experienced judges, twenty-five. Harry Howland was experienced. And he was good: He was paying attention to every dog while simultaneously moving the judging along in an appropriately efficient manner. Also, his first-place winner in Open Dogs, who also went Winners Dog, was the one I’d’ve picked myself.

Then he started on the bitches. The one puppy entered was a no-show, and the single Bred-by-Exhibitor bitch obviously had no trouble winning her class. As Leah, Kimi, and the others entered in Open Bitches filed into the ring, one bitch passed close to Mr. Wookie, who for once turned his attention from Mary and showed every intention of following the fetching femme instead. “No girls!” Mary told him. Meanwhile, Favuzza was ogling Leah so disgustingly that I almost issued the same order to him: “No girls!”

As to the malamute girls in the ring, one of Kimi’s competitors struck me as no competition. She had a snipey muzzle, big ears, and a tight tail, and when she moved, her extra flesh jiggled like Jell-O. Of the remaining three, one was probably going to lose for an unfair reason: She was red. Here in New England, we see very few reds. According to the AKC standard of the breed, color counts for nothing; it’s strictly a matter of personal preference. Still, most judges hesitate to put up a dog that looks radically different from the others in the ring. The other two were gray and white. Both were lighter than Kimi and, in contrast to Kimi, they had “open faces” like Rowdy’s, all white, without bars, goggles, or other markings. In malamutes, markings are supposed to be symmetric. Otherwise, like color, they’re nothing more than interesting variations in a variable breed. What
does
count?
Type:
Malamutes should look like malamutes, not like Siberian huskies, collies, or akitas, for example.
Soundness:
Malamutes should be built to move heavy loads over great and bitterly cold distances. One of the two light gray bitches was, to my eye, delicately pretty, not to mention cow-hocked, but her professional handler, Johnny La-motte, was a wizard. Lamotte could get correct movement from a dog with no legs, so this bitch’s gait looked at least passable. That’s better than I can say about the second light gray bitch, who moved by flinging her hind legs skyward. The hindquarters are supposed to drive the dog efficiently forward; it’s a waste of energy to treat the heavens to a prolonged view of the pads of the feet. Kimi, in contrast, moved beautifully. Furthermore, Leah handled her well. Together, Kimi and Leah created a winning picture. And won the class. As I’ve said, Harry Howland is a
good
judge.

As he handed out the ribbons, Mary joined in the applause. I did, too, of course. Favuzza, Zap, and the twin thugs didn’t. Barbarians! Worse, Favuzza jerked his thumb toward the ring in an apparent effort to tell me to get Rowdy in there. As if
I
needed direction at a dog show!

“Not quite yet,” I said. “Now the winners from the bitch classes, the first-place bitches, go back in again.” That’s what they were doing, of course. The class is called Winners, and—surprise!—the victor is called Winners Bitch. She and the Winners Dog are the ones who get the championship points. With the wisdom born of experience, the AKC recognizes that snafus occur. Therefore, the judge also selects an RWD and an RWB, reserve winners, the dog and the bitch who earn the points if the WD or the WB is “disallowed,” as it’s said.

“Kimi’s my Reserve Queen.” I said to Mary. “I could wallpaper a room in purple and white ribbons. People keep telling me to hire a handler, but I really want Leah to be able to finish Kimi herself.”

“She’s going to win,” Mary said. “Howland loves her. I can tell.”

Mary was right. Just as I’d taught her, Leah, having accepted the ribbon, was speaking politely to everyone else in the ring instead of rudely ignoring the other handlers while leaping up and down in obnoxious celebration of the win.

I nervously ran the brush over Rowdy and joined the dogs and handlers lining up for Best of Breed. Rowdy would be competing against Kimi, as well as against the Winners Dog and against the other specials, including Mr. Wookie. As I entered the ring, Harry Howland’s eyes met mine. In this situation, even if the judge is an old family friend, he’s a judge first: Harry Howland wouldn’t stroll up to me to spend twenty minutes chitchatting about how my father was doing and how I liked my new stepmother. On the other hand, nothing in the AKC regulations or guidelines prevented him from wearing a pleasant expression, and absolutely nothing required him to glare at me and grit his teeth. Instead of focusing on Rowdy, I looked down at Leah’s red blazer and my way-too-informal pants. Just ahead of me, the professional handler of an oversized, ponderous dog slowed way down. Fortunately, I caught the change of pace in time to avoid running Rowdy into the dog.