Black Ribbon

by Susan Conant

  Rowdy was fine, if a little disappointed that I didn’t immediately let him out of the car, but merely glanced at him and headed for the Pine Tree Frosty, a dog-memorable establishment that Rowdy had apparently failed to remember from previous trips to Rangeley. Or maybe he did remember it. He probably did. How could any dog forget the Fido Special? Cherry ice cream garnished with dog biscuits. Maine: The way life should be. Actually, I didn’t know what had inspired the Fido Special—maybe a beloved pet of the owner, maybe the sled dogs that visited Rangeley for the annual race, maybe the hunting dogs there for bird season.

  Fido Special in hand, I returned to the Bronco and, to avoid having the interior splashed with ice cream and dog slobber, led Rowdy to the picnic area at the rear of the Pine Tree Frosty, a collection of tables and benches on the edge of Haley’s Pond. Habitually fed bits of hot dog and hamburger roll, dozens of mallards clustered around, and as soon as Rowdy had finished his treat, he took a lively interest in them as a possible second dessert. Seated on a bench licking a chocolate ice-cream cone, Everett Dow also watched the ducks and perhaps entertained thoughts similar to Rowdy’s. The reflected light of the pond revealed Everett as weirdly old and young. The lines and hollows in his face looked peculiar without the age spots that should have accompanied them, and the hand wrapped around the ice-cream cone lacked the gnarls of age. Even at the temples, his hair showed no gray, and the light-colored stubble on his cheeks was blond, not silver. With a start, I realized that he couldn’t be much older than I was. I wondered whether I was seeing the aging effect of poverty or perhaps the impact of a long illness. I felt the impulse to approach him. On my way into Rangeley, I’d thought about getting a present for Steve, salmon flies or, better yet, material for fly-tying or, best of all, if I could afford it, the kind of beautifully carved duck decoy meant to attract aesthetically-minded human collectors rather than feathered prey. If anyone in Rangeley made or sold those decoys, Everett would certainly know.

  I was on the verge of stepping toward him to ask when Eva Spitteler, who wore a boldly lettered Waggin’ Tail T-shirt, suddenly stomped up to me to demand whether something unspecified wasn’t a violation of the health code. Before I could ask what she meant, she announced that Rangeley probably didn’t have a health code, anyway. “Jesus,” she hollered, “the original Podunk, U.S.A. Wouldn’t you’ve thought Max could do better than this shithole?”

  I prayed that the flat waters of Haley’s Pond would miraculously rise in rage and gather themselves into a tidal wave that would wash Eva Spitteler from their shores. Alternatively, the mallards could be struck by a sudden Hitchcockian frenzy and leap out of the pond and onto Eva and peck her to death.Miracles failing to materialize, however, I wished that the ducks would at least quack raucously enough to drown out Eva’s horrible voice. Max couldn’t have done better than this, I wanted to say, because Rangeley is as good as it gets; there is no better. All I actually uttered was an inadequate mumble to the effect that I’d always liked Rangeley.

  Instead of licking her ice-cream cone, Eva took an aggressive bite that left big tooth marks. The ice cream was peppermint stick, I think, or maybe strawberry or the same cherry that Rowdy had just enjoyed; at any rate, it was something pink with reddish striations. Her bite mark resembled an illustration of what a shark’s teeth can do to human flesh.

  If I’d been the brave and loyal person that my dogs imagine me to be, I’d have jumped onto one of the picnic tables and belted out an oratorically elaborate, rhetorically embellished tribute to the Town of Rangeley. Failing that, I’d have gone from bench to bench, picnic table to picnic table, to apologize for Eva Spitteler’s rudeness and to explain that she wasn’t really a dog person at all, but an embarrassment to every one of us, as unwelcome in our midst as she was in theirs. But I’m a coward. Also, I’m slow-witted.

  Rowdy, however, is brave and quick. As I was trying to think of a way to make an immediate escape, he glanced from Eva to me. His rib cage began to contract, the telltale smile appeared on his face, and in a heroic act of self-sacrifice, he swiftly deposited the Fido Special on Eva’s sandal-shod feet.

  DOG OBEDIENCE drill team belongs to the happy class of cultural entities that demarcate the boundaries of the serious by deliberately crossing far, far beyond them. To apply ordinary standards of decorum, restraint, or simple good taste to these usefully ludicrous activities and objects is thus to strip them of their essential function. As the plots of grand opera mock the despair of high tragedy, as the confectionary bride and groom atop a wedding cake deride the solemnity of marriage, as Halloween costumes laugh at death itself, so does marching around with dogs to the strains of John Phillip Sousa ridicule the partnership between us and our animals and thereby define the holiness of the bond.

  Now that I’ve stifled the hoots of Cambridge with that richly Cantabrigian rationalization, let me explain that at Waggin’ Tail, drill team took place in the middle of the big field behind the main lodge, in fact, between the lodge and obedience tent, and was taught by a jolly-looking, round-faced woman named Janet, who started the activity promptly at three-thirty by lining us up according to the sizes of our dogs. Stepping back now and then to see how we looked, Janet efficiently arranged us in a long, straight line of thirty-five or so dog-handler pairs, with the toy breeds in the center, a Great Dane bitch at one end, a Newfoundland the other, large breeds next to them, then medium, then small. So meticulous was Janet in assuring that dog height steadily ascended from the center of the line to the ends that I felt almost apologetic about the ups and downs of human heads, as if all of us should have anticipated the aesthetic demands of drill team by selecting dogs according to our own proportions, giant dogs for lofty people, toys for the tiny.

  Even if the rest of us had chosen our breeds with a good drill-team topline in mind, Phyllis Abbott would’ve thrown it off, but in all other respects, she was an asset, and so was little Nigel. Edwina, who’d had the unhappy encounter with the scent articles, was a good-looking bitch and an excellent obedience dog, but Nigel was flashier than Edwina, a sturdy, sparkling fellow with a naturally fabulous, beautifully nurtured coat in a shade of red remarkably like that of Phyllis’s hair. Yes! The ovogallinaceous puzzler in cynogynic form: Which came first, the dog or the tint? In either case, the well-matched, soigné pair were a credit to obedience, exactly the kinds of ambassadors we need to dispel our image as the Order of Slobs of The Fancy.

  Also, once Janet began directing us, it became evident that Mrs. Abbott knew what she was doing. We started without music. On signal, Mrs. Abbott heeled Nigel forward. Head high, shoulders back, she had a dancer’s carriage. When she’d taken about four steps, the teams to her left and right moved forward; and then four paces later, the next two teams, and so on until we were spread out in V-formation, like Canada geese. Reaching the end of the field, our leaders, Phyllis and Nigel, made an about-turn, came to a halt, and waited until, two by two, the other teams executed the same maneuver and thus re-formed a straight line. After that, with Phyllis leading, we again distributed ourselves across the field and performed what in my mind became a rather bewildering series of halts, turns, and forwards, at the conclusion of which we somehow found ourselves back in what had now become a ragged line that eventually straightened out and attempted to rotate itself. Pivoting in place, Phyllis and Nigel acted as a pin that held our center firm, but I’m afraid that those of us at the outer edges created such a straggly effect that, viewed from above, our supposedly precise line must have looked like the melting hands of a Dali clock. I tried my best to do everything at once, but everything proved more than I could manage. I’d take big, fast steps to move us even with the man and the Great Dane bitch at our left, and having positioned us in line with them, I’d discover that we’d forged far ahead of the woman and the big mix-breed to our right. Simultaneously listening to Janet’s booming instructions and slowing down to put us even with that team, I’d glance to the far end of the line to discover that our supposedly opposite
numbers, Michael and Jacob, weren’t actually opposite us at all. Adjusting my pace to make us match Michael and Jacob, I’d lose track of Rowdy, and while bringing him back to heel position, I’d take my eye off the Great Dane, and when I looked toward her again, she’d somehow have ended up way, way behind us. So I’d slow down, thus throwing off the team to our right. And thus it went until, after a great deal of backing up and stepping forward, we ended up exactly where we’d begun, the handlers a little dizzy and out of breath, but so ferociously proud of our performance that we burst into cheers, released our dogs, rubbed their chests, and thus sent them into the leaping, yelping equivalent of our own self-applause.

  The second time, we did almost as badly as we’d done the first and congratulated ourselves just as wildly. Thereafter, we became, if not precise, at least a little less sloppy than we’d been. Lost in play, I lost track of time and was amazed when Janet announced the end of drill team by telling us what a great group we were. Tomorrow, Janet promised, we’d add music.

  In the past hour, shaded by the darkening clouds and cooled by a sudden steady breeze from the lake, the field had changed seasons from late summer to early autumn. Barearmed, I needed the sweatshirt I’d left with Rowdy’s canvas travel bag; and especially with flyball due to begin almost immediately in the same field, Rowdy needed a drink and a little walk. As I crossed the grass toward the area by the blacktop where most of us had piled our gear and where a crowd had gathered to wait for flyball, I caught up with Phyllis Abbott, who exclaimed, “Now that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Fun with your dog!” She repeated, as if reminding herself, “That’s what it’s all about.”

  “It sure is,” I agreed. When we reached the pile of our belongings, I pulled on a dark green sweatshirt that showed a picture of an adorable malamute of four or five weeks. Above his head was a query addressed to breeders about whether they knew where their puppies were; below, an admonition to support rescue.

  “Oh, I like that!” Mrs. Abbott said.

  Only a few years earlier, I’d sometimes had to explain to disappointed members of the general public that Malamute Rescue does not mean training the breed to sniff out earthquake victims; our dogs have been rescued, and any heroic acts they may subsequently perform are strictly incidental. Far from confusing our dogs with the Search and Rescue variety, a few members of the fancy had seen them as the likely perpetrators of disaster scenes: slavering beasts, their mad eyes fixed on the jugulars of young children. Then all of a sudden, the dog fancy discovered the breed rescue movement and abruptly declared us politically correct. The AKC’s stamp of approval hadn’t yet paid any vet bills, but cachet was a start. Maybe cash would follow. I wondered whether Phyllis Abbott had ever taken a Pomeranian from a shelter or trained a wildacting stray to become a civilized pet. When she and Don Abbott were with their AKC friends, did she raise the issue of puppy mills? Or did her support of rescue consist of saying nice things about other people’s sweatshirts?

  Quite a few people were letting their dogs drink out of a communal water bucket, but I filled Rowdy’s own little travel bowl from his own water bottle. When he’d slurped up three or four bowlfuls, I replaced his training collar and leash with his retractable lead, which, I might add, I had examined minutely without discovering any signs of tampering. After taking Rowdy to the edge of the woods for what dogdom persists in calling a bathroom trip, I led him to the big crowd that had gathered for flyball, a sport I’d watched before, but one that neither Rowdy nor I had ever tried. Janet, our drill team instructor, and two other women had set up three flyball boxes, each about the size of a big milk box. Lines of handlers and dogs were already queuing up. The line on the far left was obviously where Rowdy and I didn’t belong. Rowdy could easily have cleared the series of low jumps in front of the professional-looking flyball box, but unlike the bouncing, yelping off-lead dogs in that line, he wouldn’t have known what to do once he got to the contraption. Should you be as inexperienced as Rowdy was, let me explain that when the dog whacks the front of the box—or in the primitive versions of the apparatus, a pedal at the front—the contraption releases a tennis ball that the dog is supposed to catch. An advanced dog dashes over the jumps, hits the box with his paw, catches the ball, and goes back over the jumps. In flyball tournaments, teams of dogs compete in what are, in effect, relay races. Competitive flyball is simple and fast, beautiful to watch, the basketball of canine sports.

  Mainly because Eva Spitteler and Bingo were last in line at the middle flyball box, I led Rowdy to the line at the right. Directly ahead of us were Phyllis Abbott and her male Pomeranian, Nigel; and in front of them, Joy and Lucky. For once, the little quasi-Cairn was standing on his own four feet. Looking bare-chested without the dog clutched to her breast, Joy was engaged in animated conversation with Phyllis Abbott.

  I caught the end of something Joy was saying: “… from a pet shop. I didn’t know any better at the time, and he is—”

  “Every dog comes from somewhere!” Phyllis interrupted, “and that doesn’t mean you love him any less.” She paused. “Does it?”

  “Of course not!” Joy replied. “It’s just that—”

  “They don’t all have to be show dogs,” Phyllis pronounced. “And Lucky has a very sweet face.” For that moment, so did Phyllis.

  Warmed by Phyllis’s praise, Joy made what sounded like a confidence. “And he, uh, he just passed his Canine Good Citizen test.”

  Considerate obedience judge that she was, Phyllis projected her voice: “Congratulations! That’s very special. I hope you’re proud of yourself and proud of your dog.” What bothered me, I suppose, was a brittle note that made me wonder whether Phyllis’s kindness to Joy represented a triumph over some hidden sense of her own fragility.

  “Well, all the dogs passed,” Joy admitted. “They did the second time.” Her pink face reddened. “The first time, they all … But then Maxine decided there was something wrong.” Regaining her composure, she speeded up. “And so Maxine decided that it wasn’t very fair, even though that’s what the rules said, strictly speaking, but Maxine decided that’s not what the rules really meant, because they meant, because what they meant was, uh, a dog you would like to own, really, a dog that is a good citizen. And so we all got to do anything we’d failed all over again! And that time, Lucky passed!”

  Phyllis Abbott looked as astonished as I felt. The guidelines for the CGC Program are very flexible. The AKC does not, however, even begin to condone the practice of passing all dogs by giving them extra chances at exercises they’ve failed.

  “Really,” Joy added, “it was fair, because all of them really are good dogs.”

  Phyllis bent down and needlessly fiddled with Nigel’s collar. As an obedience judge, Phyllis Abbott was not charged with policing CGC tests. Even so, as my column-in-progress had begun to point out, judges represent the AKC itself and the entire sport of dogs. If Maxine McGuire wanted to keep her campers happy by declaring all “good dogs,” whatever that meant, Canine Good Citizens, Phyllis Abbott didn’t want to hear about it. When Phyllis stood up, I caught her eye and said, “The dogs at camp are a lot better behaved than the average dog, and the owners are responsible, or they wouldn’t be here. And there’s probably a lot of self-selection. People probably wouldn’t have paid the twenty dollars unless they were fairly sure that their dogs would pass.”

  “You want to see Lucky’s ribbon?” Joy asked. “Craig! Craig! Where’s Lucky’s ribbon?”

  A Nikon dangling from a strap around his neck, Craig was seated on the rough grass, ready, I assumed, to take a picture of Lucky enjoying flyball. Beckoned by his wife, he reached into the pocket of what looked like a government-issue tan windbreaker and produced a green ribbon.

  Joy motioned to Craig to bring it to her. Up close, the dark green satiny strip of fabric looked all too familiar. AKC rules about ribbons, prizes, and trophies are clear and rigid. In conformation, dark green means a special prize; in obedience, it’s the color of the ribbon awar
ded to every dog that qualifies. Groups sponsoring CGC tests were, I knew, allowed to give ribbons to dogs that passed. I was quite sure, however, that dark green was not a permissible color, and I was positive that CGC ribbons were not supposed to display the seal of the American Kennel Club. But there it was, smack in the center of the ribbon: three concentric circles, the words American Kennel Club curving around the top of the outer circle, a star fore and aft, the word Incorporated underneath; then the circle of little dots; and within the solid inner circle—some mystical significance there, perhaps?—the letters A K C. No big deal? Wrong. Imprimatur: Let it be printed, the statement at the beginning of books approved by the Roman Catholic Church. Well, the AKC seal is the imprimatur of the fancy, and the AKC is about as happy to see it used without permission as the Pope would be to have the Church’s imprimatur casually placed on the masthead of every issue of Dog’s Life, not that there’s anything sacrilegious about Dog’s Life—for all I know, the Pope may even subscribe—any more than there’s anything objectionable about CGC tests. But just as the Pope can’t check out every issue of Dog’s Life before it’s published, the AKC can’t send a rep to every CGC test; therefore, no imprimatur and no AKC seal.

  Appropriately enough, Phyllis Abbott rolled her eyes toward heaven—or maybe toward 51 Madison Avenue. With admirable grace, she murmured, for my ears only, “I am not seeing that.” She cleared her throat. “I am not looking.”

  I complied with what I understood as Judge Abbott’s request. “Very nice,” I told Joy. I pointed out that she was next in line. Taking the green ribbon from his wife, Craig hurried away, hunkered down a few yards from the flyball box, and raised the camera to his eye. The flyball instructor in charge of our group—Betsy, her name was, a wiry woman with weathered skin and deep laugh lines—loaded the apparatus with a tennis ball. With Betsy’s help, Joy succeeded in getting Lucky to put his paws on the pedal, but each time the tennis ball flew through the air, the little fellow acted more startled than pleased. At the flyball box to our left, the one manned by Janet, our drill team instructor, Elsa the Chesapeake leaped after a ball, and Eric Grimaldi gave a shout of pleasure. “Good girl, Elsa! Good girl!”