Albert Payson Terhune

“ To the born and bred show-dog this is an everyday occurrence—painful, but inevitable. To a chum-dog like Lad, it is heartbreaking. The big collie buried his head in the Mistress’ lap and crouched hopelessly at her feet as the car chugged cityward.
A thoroughly unhappy dog is the most thoroughly unhappy thing on earth. All the adored Mistress’ coaxings and pettings could not rouse Lad from his dull apathy of despair. ”

“ The dogs were bred in a way to bring out certain arbitrary “points” which count in show-judging, and which change from year to year.
Brain, fidelity, devotion, the human side of a dog—these were totally ignored in the effort to breed the perfect physical animal. The dogs were kept in kennel-buildings and in wire “runs” like so many pedigreed cattle—looked after by paid attendants, and trained to do nothing but to be the best-looking of their kind, and to win ribbons. ”

“ And if their dogs have choke-collars, why, then they’ve got to hold their heads high when the leash is pulled. They’ve got to, to keep from strangling. It gives them a fine, proud carriage of the head, that counts a lot with some judges. All dog-photos are taken that way. Then the leash is blotted out of the negative. Makes the dog look showy, too—keeps him from slumping. Can’t slump much you’re trying not to choke, you know.”
“It’s horrible! Horrible!” shuddered the Mistress. “I wouldn’t put such a thing on Lad for all the prizes on earth. ”

“ To humans there was no odor at all in the naphtha soap with which the Mistress lathered the dog, and every visible atom of it was washed away at once with warm water. But a human’s sense of smell, compared with the best type of collie’s, is as a purblind puppy’s power of sight in comparison to a hawk’s. ”

“ I wonder the S. P. C. A. doesn’t do something to make it easier.”
“If I’d known—if we’d known—” began the Mistress.
“Most of these folks know!” returned the collie man. “They do it year after year. There’s a mighty strong lure in a bit of ribbon. Why, look what an exhibitor will do for it! He’ll risk his dog’s health and make his dog’s life a horror. He’ll ship him a thousand miles in a tight crate from Show to Show. (Some dogs die under the strain of so many journeys.) And he’ll pay five dollars for every class the dog’s entered in. Some exhibitors enter a single dog in five or six classes. ”

“ The scientific applying of these strips had painfully imparted to the prick-ears (the dog’s one flaw) the perfect tulip-shape so desirable as a show-quality. Champion Coldstream Guard’s silken ears could not have had other than ideal shape and posture if he had wanted them to—while that crisscross of sticky strips held them in position!
Now, this was no new trick—the ruse that the Champion’s handlers had employed. Again and again in bench-shows, it had been employed upon bull-terriers. ”

“ A four-day show is the most fearful thing a high-strung dog can go through—next to vivisection. A little one-day show, for about eight hours, is no special ordeal, especially if the dog’s Master stays near him all the time ”

“ I’ll help you put them on.”
“Why, we’ve only this chain,” said the Mistress. “We bought it for Lad yesterday, and this is his regular collar though he never has had to wear it. Do we have to have another kind?”
“You don’t have to unless you want to,” said the collie man, “but it’s best—especially, the choke-collar. You see, when exhibitors go into the ring, they hold their dogs by the leash close to the neck. ”

“ In other kennels, bull-terriers’ white coats were still further whitened by the harsh rubbing of pipe-clay into the tender skin. Sensitive tails and still more sensitive ears were sandpapered, for the victims’ greater beauty—and agony. ”

“ He—”
“Yes?” said the collie man, quite unimpressed. “Very interesting—but not useful in a show. Some of the big exhibitors still care for sense in their dogs, and they make companions of them—Eileen Moretta, for instance, and Fred Leighton and one or two more; but I find most of the rest are just out for the prizes. Let’s have a look at your dog. Where is he?”
On the way down the alley toward Cell 658 they met the worried Mistress.
“Lad won’t eat a thing,” she reported, “and he wouldn’t eat before we left home this morning, either. He drinks plenty of water, but he won’t eat. ”

“ The platform was some six inches high and four feet square. At corners of these “judging-rings” were blackboards on which the classes next to be inspected were chalked up.
All around the central space were alleys, on each side of which were lines of raised “benches,” two feet from the ground. The benches were carpeted with straw and were divided off by high wire partitions into compartments about three feet in area. Each compartment was to be the abiding-place of some unfortunate dog for the next four days and nights. By short chains the dogs were bound into these open-fronted cells. ”

“ The Association charges one dollar admission to the show. Crowds of people pay the price to come in. The exhibitor gets none of the gate-money. All he gets for his five dollars or his twenty-five dollars is an off chance at a measly scrap of colored silk worth maybe four cents. ”

“ The Master came back with a plumply tipped attendant. Lad was conducted through a babel of yapping and snapping thoroughbreds of all breeds, to a section at the Garden’s northeast corner, above which, in large black letters on a white sign, was inscribed “Collies.” ”