two vintage holly winter stories by Susan Conant Read Free Book Online Page B

thirty-two."
    Although I didn't see it or hear it, it's possible that the Terv ticked the high jump. When Mrs. Cormier said the Terv used the jump to climb over, though, she was lying. "I'm not even required to explain it to you, you know," she told the handler. "I'm trying to be helpful."
    After the handler had left the ring, Mrs. Cormier fixed her eyes on me. "She knew that dog couldn't jump the required height." She sounded outraged. "She thought she'd pull a fast one on me and get away with thirty inches!" She gave an unappetizing snort. "Where's my sandwich?" She spotted it on her table, snatched it up, and tore off the plastic wrapper. She took a big bite and made a face. Dog show food. What did she expect? "Moldy," she said. She took another bite, swigged some coffee, wiped her hand on her mouth, and put the sandwich on the table—yes. right out in plain sight and even plainer smell of every dog that would enter her ring.
    Breed loyalty being what it is, I won't say what the next dog was, but I'll tell you he was so nervous that he gagged, choked and eventually vomited. Happy, who was a friend of the handler's, murmured to me that the dog was great in class but always went to pieces in the ring. Mrs. Cormier informed the handler that a little bundle of nerves like that didn't belong in obedience at all. She went on to predict that he'd develop seizures and eventually turn into a fear-biter, too.
    "Bitch!" Happy said none too softly.
    I glanced toward the Utility ring to see whether Mr. Cormier had overheard, but he was at least twenty feet away, smiling down at a Border collie and chatting amiably with the owner.
    "If she's this unfair in the ring, imagine what she's like at home!" I said. "How does he stand her?"
    "He's stuck with her," Happy said.
    A non-dog person would probably have expected her to explain that the Cormiers objected to divorce on religious grounds, and she did, more or less: "They co-own twelve dogs."
    "Oh," I said. "What kind?"
    "Pulis."
    Yeah, pulik. But that's not what she said. Anyway, I was astounded. I always think of puli people as exceptionally ethical. It was hard to believe that Mrs. Cormier owned even one puli, never mind half of twelve.
    The next two dogs were Rotties. If I'd been scoring Mrs. Cormier's judging of both of them, I'd have given her substantial penalties for consistent crowding. By the time the second Rottie and his handler were leaving the ring, word about the substitute judge in Open A had evidently spread. Ring 19 had drawn a large crowd, and the spectators were jammed together because the obedience table was on one side of our ring, the Novice A ring on another, and Mr. Cormier's Utility ring on the third side. In the aisle on the gate side, waiting handlers peered in to study the heeling pattern, and everyone watched to see whether the judge was really as mean as everyone was saying.
    Well, she was worse. The next dog was another golden, not spectacular like the first golden, but not bad, and definitely qualifying. Not according to Mrs. Cormier, though. When he and his handler left the ring, I did something else that I want you to promise never to mention to anyone from the AKC. I asked Nancy how many no-shows we had.
    “A lot," she said.
    "Good. Now, look. If anyone else wants to check in, why don't you just sort of emphasize that this is a substitute judge."
    "I have been," she said, "but you know what people are like."
    "I'll bet she doesn't qualify a single dog," I said.
    I was wrong. The next dog, a black standard poodle, got off to a bad start by trying to steal the sandwich that was still sitting on the table, and he came to a bad end by vaulting out of the ring. But after that, another dog entered our ring, and Mrs. Cormier finally liked what she saw.
    On the drop on recall, the dog started toward his handier before he was called, and he also dropped before the signal. On the retrieve on flat and the retrieve over high jump, he went after his dumbbell the