Hounded to Death

by Laurien Berenson

  “Anytime, babe.”

  “Now listen,” I said on a more serious note. “Talk to Davey about the fact that he might be getting a little sister. He’s waited so long for a sibling, I’d really hate for him to be disappointed.”

  “I know,” said Sam. “Me too. I’ll work on it.”

  “One more thing. Reach down and give Faith a pat. Tell her it’s from me.”

  “Already done,” said Sam. “She’s been sitting on my lap listening to your voice while we’ve been talking.”

  My heart softened. “I love you.”

  “I know.”

  “Do better.”

  “You’re the love of my life and you always will be.”

  “That works.”

  “For me too,” said Sam.

  Bertie got back to the room just before midnight. She beat Aunt Peg by at least an hour. So it was no surprise that my aunt was looking rather bleary eyed at breakfast the next morning.

  Not that I was eating breakfast actually. But I was sitting at a table with the two of them, sipping a glass of orange juice and trying to be sociable.

  Aunt Peg’s a multi-tasker. She had a fork in one hand and the day’s agenda in the other.

  “Margo has really outdone herself,” she said. “This schedule has something that should be of interest to just about everyone.”

  “Better still,” said Bertie, “if we get tired of sitting through lectures and panel discussions, all the inn’s facilities are available to us. I’ve got my eye on the spa myself. I’m pretty sure I could use a mud bath or a massage.”

  I watched enviously as she cut off a large square of waffle and stuffed it into her mouth. Bertie never had to worry about her weight. Not only that but whatever carousing she and Alana had been up to the night before, she didn’t seem to be suffering any repercussions.

  “Richard wants to try out the hot tub,” said Peg. “He asked if I’d brought a bathing suit with me. Can you just imagine?”

  “Sure,” I said, lying with conviction. I’d never seen my aunt in a bathing suit and I doubted I ever would. “Speaking of Richard, how was your dinner?”

  “It was fine.”

  I sat and waited. Aunt Peg ignored me and returned to eating her omelet. Obviously she thought her first answer had been sufficient.

  Which of course it hadn’t.

  “Fine?” Bertie said after a minute. “Just fine?”

  Peg looked up. “What do you mean just fine? Fine is a good thing.”

  “Fine is an okay thing,” I said. “It’s damning with faint praise. It certainly doesn’t sound very exciting.”

  “Oh, pish. Who wants excitement at my age?”

  Bertie and I exchanged a glance. As if we were going to buy that. Especially considering the source.

  “We want details,” I said.

  “Well, I’d like to win the lottery,” Aunt Peg replied, “and I don’t see that happening either.”

  She looked at her watch, pushed back her chair, and stood. “My dear friend Wanda Swanson will be starting her Saluki lecture shortly and I intend to be sitting front row center when she does. I trust you two can manage to keep yourselves occupied without my guidance?”

  Bertie and I agreed that we could.

  “In that case, I shall see you later. We’ll meet at quarter to three outside the main lecture hall. Does that suit?”

  Charles Evans would be giving the keynote address at three. Before speaking with Margo the previous evening, I wasn’t sure I’d bother to attend. Having been forewarned, however, that Charles’s presentation might be the most exciting thing to happen all week, I now had no intention of missing it.

  Bertie obviously felt the same way. We both nodded. Aunt Peg gathered up her things and left.

  Bertie glanced down at the schedule. “Let’s see, the first track offers a choice between Salukis and Irish Setters. Or I can cut out on them both and get a little pampering.” She considered for a moment. “Not much choice there, I’m going for the pampering.”

  “It’s Irish Setters for me,” I said. I’d always been intrigued by the beautiful, russet dogs.

  “Go for it,” said Bertie. “I’ll catch up with you later.”

  If I had been paying more attention—which translated in my mind to if I wasn’t pregnant—I would have realized that Caroline Evans was the judge leading the discussion of Irish Setters. I settled down near the front of the room and watched Charles’s wife take command of the podium with authority. She was petite in stature but her forceful demeanor made her seem bigger. When Caroline was ready to start speaking, the room, filled nearly to capacity, immediately quieted.

  What followed was a talk that was every bit as lively and playful as the red setters themselves. Caroline clearly adored her subject. She managed to convey her devotion to the breed while at the same time imparting a huge amount of useful information.

  It was easy to understand why Bertie and Aunt Peg had praised the woman’s judging skills. If Caroline handled herself in the show ring as well as she did in the lecture hall, even the most knowledgeable exhibitors would have been delighted to have her opinion.

  Having skipped breakfast, I took a quick break for an early lunch when the lecture ended. Soup and crackers eaten in a café overlooking the wooded mountainside was about all my stomach could tolerate. That afternoon, I listened to half a session on Otterhounds, then stuck my head briefly into the Kuvasz room.

  By then, I’d been inside nearly all day. The building was beginning to feel stuffy to me; I grabbed a jacket and headed outside for a walk.

  As soon as I stepped through the door, the crisp, cool autumn air revived my spirits. The tangy scent of pine filled the air. A hiking path angled away from the far side of the parking lot and off into the woods. Striding out, I headed for it eagerly.

  After a day of sitting still, it felt good just to be moving again. The only thing keeping the experience from being just right, I realized, was the lack of canine companionship.

  I’d grown up without pets, and spent my early adult years similarly dogless. Then Aunt Peg had given me my first Standard Poodle, Faith, and everything had changed. Faith’s daughter, Eve, had become part of our family several years later; and now it was hard to imagine how I’d ever lived without either one of them.

  When Sam and I got married, he’d added his three Standard Poodles to the mix. Now we had a houseful, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d gone for a walk without at least one Poodle cavorting at my side. Glad as I was to be outdoors on such a beautiful afternoon, I knew I’d enjoy the activity more if I had a dog to share it with.

  Lost in contemplation, I actually, for a moment, thought I’d conjured up the dog that suddenly came trotting out of the woods and onto the path in front of me. He was a good-sized German Shepherd, tan with black markings. His body was muscular, but thin. He wasn’t wearing a collar.

  “Hey, boy,” I said.

  The dog stopped in his tracks. He seemed as surprised to see me as I was to see him.

  “What are you doing out here?” I asked.

  Not surprisingly, he didn’t answer.

  I stopped walking, too. We stood and stared at one another.

  After a moment, I held out a hand. The dog lifted a lip, showing a row of strong white teeth.

  “Shhh,” I said, “it’s okay.”

  But I pulled my hand back, just in case.

  The dog had a wary, skittish look about him. He was an attractive Shepherd, clearly a purebred. His eyes were sharp and shifty, though. He didn’t look like someone’s pet.

  “Are you hungry?”

  The dog cocked his head. Clearly he was listening to me. Just as clearly, he wasn’t about to come any nearer.

  Slowly I reached in my pocket and pulled out a granola bar. Probably not the best thing for him, but it was all I had. If the dog was a stray and had missed a couple of meals, he wouldn’t be too choosy.

  He watched me unwrap the treat. His body was still, his dark e
yes riveted.

  Once again I held out my hand. Once again he declined to step toward me. Someone, somewhere, had destroyed his trust in people.

  “Here you go,” I said, giving the granola bar a gentle toss.

  I thought he might catch it, but he was too cautious for that. Instead he let it land in the pine needles at his feet. His head dipped down for a quick sniff; then his teeth opened and he snatched it up. Immediately then, he spun around and disappeared back into the trees.

  “You’re welcome,” I called after him.

  I might as well have been talking to myself.

  The woods were thick with underbrush, but the Shepherd slipped through the thick cover effortlessly. No sound alerted me to the direction he had taken. When I stepped off the path and peered into the trees, I saw no sign of him. The dog had vanished as suddenly as he’d appeared.

  If I hadn’t still been holding the empty wrapper in my hands, I might have wondered if I’d imagined him.

  6

  “There you are,” said Aunt Peg. “Bertie and I were wondering where you’d gone off to.”

  The two of them were waiting for me outside the door to the main lecture hall. It was nearly time for Charles’s speech, and judging by the crowd that had gathered, most of the symposium participants planned to attend. The room’s double doors were wide open; even so, with the crush of people in the entryway, there was a wait to get through.

  “I hear you’re supposed to be keeping an eye on me,” I said to Bertie.

  She flushed guiltily. “Frank made me promise. I think Sam put him up to it.”

  “And you gave in? You of all people should know better. I’m pregnant, not incapacitated. When you were pregnant, did anyone follow you around?”

  “Actually, yeah…Frank did. It just about drove me crazy. Eventually I had to tell him that if he didn’t stop, I’d reconsider the whole idea and not have the baby.”

  “I’ll bet that worked,” Peg said dryly.

  She ushered Bertie and me into the flow of traffic. “If we don’t find seats soon, we’ll have to settle for a back corner somewhere. Considering what Margo said last night, I’d just as soon have a good view of the proceedings.”

  “Have you heard any more about Charles’s speech?” I asked, as we found three empty chairs on the aisle in the middle of the room.

  “Not a blessed thing. If Charles is up to something, he must be planning to spring it on us as a surprise. Or maybe Margo was mistaken and it was all just a false alarm.”

  At the front of the room, Margo stepped up to the podium and asked for silence. Stragglers found their seats. Conversations died away. Everyone waited expectantly.

  “I’d like to welcome you to the first annual Rockwall Mountain Symposium,” she began. “I trust you’re all having a wonderful time so far?”

  People nodded in agreement. There was a smattering of applause.

  “Excellent. It’s my pleasure to present our keynote speaker, Charles Evans. For most of you, I would imagine that this is a man who needs no introduction. Charles has been a force in the world of purebred dogs since he won the Junior Showmanship class at Westminster in…” She paused as if trying to come up with the year. “Well, let’s just say it was quite some time ago.”

  Charles, standing off to one side, nodded in acknowledgment of the teasing jab. The audience laughed appreciatively.

  “In due course Charles became one of the top professional handlers the sport has ever known. Some of the dogs he presented are known in the annals of their breeds as legends. His skill, his flair, his innate ability to bring out the best in every dog he showed changed the look of presentation for the generations of professional handlers that followed.”

  She was laying it on pretty thick. I wondered if Margo was hoping that if she piled on the accolades, Charles might be convinced to abort whatever subversive plan he had in mind.

  If so, the symposium director was certainly giving it her best shot. The introduction droned on and on. Finishing with his handling career, Margo began to praise Charles’s superior skills when he moved into the next phase of his profession and became a knowledgeable and discerning judge.

  I slumped in my seat and reconsidered my earlier opinion. Maybe Margo’s plan was to bore the audience to sleep before she relinquished the podium in the hope that that would mute the effect of whatever it was Charles had to say.

  I took a look around the room. Though a majority of the attendees were already aware of Charles’s accomplishments, most were listening politely.

  I’d have expected to see Caroline Evans sitting right down in front. Instead she was seated not too far from us. Rather than listening to her husband’s introduction, she was fooling with something in her lap. It looked like she was text-messaging someone on her phone. No doubt she’d heard all this before.

  When Margo finally stopped speaking and Charles stepped forward, the applause was thunderous. Whether the response was for Charles himself, or whether the audience was simply relieved to finally have the program move forward, it was hard to tell.

  “Good afternoon,” Charles said.

  His voice was deep and soothing. It rolled out across the room like the voice of wisdom. And the voice of authority.

  We all sat up and began to pay attention.

  He looked around the room. “What a pleasure it is to see so many familiar faces here today. Old friends and, I hope, some new ones too. I’m here to talk to you about the future of a sport that we all know and love. Of course, I’m referring to the sport of dogs.”

  Despite his opening, Charles spent the next fifteen minutes speaking not about the future, but rather about the past. He gave a brief history of dog showing in the United States and talked about how much the dog world had changed in the thirty-plus years of his own involvement.

  Earlier sportsmen, he told us, had defined the different breeds of dogs by their function and usefulness. In the intervening years, however, generations of dog fanciers had revised and reshaped those breeds with the result that the dogs we knew today often looked very different from their forebears.

  None of this came as a shock to anyone in the audience. Some of the listeners were nodding as he spoke; others were desultorily taking notes.

  Then Charles paused and took a deep breath. “We now come to the heart of the message I want to deliver. Conscience compels me to say something that may not be entirely popular. Something that many of you may not want to hear. Please bear in mind that throughout my entire career, one thing has remained true. I have always, always put the welfare of the dog first. It is something I shall also attempt to do today, no matter what the consequences of my actions might be.”

  People who had begun to relax, sat up straight again. Those who were taking notes, turned to a fresh page.

  “Uh oh,” Aunt Peg said under her breath. “Here it comes.”

  I could see Margo, sitting off to one side of the dais. Her fingers were knit together tightly in her lap. Her expression was strained.

  Charles, by contrast, looked calm and composed. He grasped the sides of the podium between his hands and gazed out over his audience.

  “Unfortunately in its current state, the sport of dogs has become a somewhat unnatural activity. Driven by the desire to produce dogs that will excel in the show ring, putting the need to win above all else, breeders are manipulating canine genetics in the quest to produce a perfect specimen. A quest that has not only proven elusive but has also worked to the detriment of many breeds. One only has to look at the narrow, pointed head of the Collie, the profuse, almost unworkable coat of the Poodle, or the reproductive difficulties of many of the Toy breeds to see how true this is.”

  “I would beg to differ,” Aunt Peg said under her breath.

  No surprise, she sounded annoyed. As soon as Charles had uttered the words, I’d known that the reference to Poodles would make her bristle.

  “We have taken animals that, in their pure and natural state, are a thing of grace and beau
ty, of intelligence and fierce loyalty, and we have turned them into little more than puppets for human entertainment.”

  “What’s your point?” somebody called out from the back of the room.

  Angry muttering followed. It was, I suspected, directed more at Charles than at the heckler.

  “I’ll tell you my point,” Charles said. Despite the obvious opposition in the room, he remained unruffled.

  “Dog shows were originally intended to be a sporting competition to determine whose dogs were best suited for the purpose for which they’d been produced. That is obviously no longer true. In the show ring, we have retrievers who can’t retrieve, Newfoundlands who’ve never been allowed to swim, and terriers who wouldn’t recognize vermin if it ran between their legs. One by one, the usefulness of our breeds is slipping away. They’re being ruined by what has essentially turned into a canine beauty contest. And that is a damn shame.”

  The audience—all of them dog lovers, and all of them dog show aficionados—was growing mutinous now. People were speaking loudly among themselves. Other voices joined those of the initial heckler.

  Caroline rose, excused herself, slipped from the row of chairs, and left the room.

  Charles, still speaking, didn’t appear to notice.

  “As we look toward the future, we need to recognize that not only are the animal rights groups not going to go away, but they are going to increase their base of support. It would be a show of wisdom on our part to accept the fact that they have some valid points. Rather than dismissing their agenda, we need to find a way to reconcile and to work together with them.”

  “No way!” someone called out.

  A woman I didn’t know stood up. “You want us to reconcile with people who think it’s all right to stage protests by showing up at dog shows, opening crates, and turning defenseless dogs loose to run in traffic? That’s the kind of agenda you think we ought to support?”

  Charles looked to see who had spoken up.

  “I’ll admit that in an effort to get our attention, some of their tactics have been extreme. But that doesn’t negate the fact that some of what they’re saying has merit. We are the ones who are to blame for letting dog shows reach their current state. We have work to do, people, and it’s high time that we accepted that fact.”