Collie -- Juvenile fiction; Dogs -- Juvenile fiction; Short stories
The Mistress alone he forbore to bite. He loved her. But she was a
grievous disappointment to him. From the first, she saw through his
vehement show of ferocity and took it at its true value. Try as he would
he could not frighten her. Try as he would, he could not mask his
adoration for her.
Again and again he would lie down for a nap at her feet; only to waken
presently with a thundrous growl and a snarl, and with a lunge of bared
teeth at her caressing hand. The hand would continue to caress; and his
show of fury was met with a laugh and with the comment:
“You’ve had a good sleep, and now you’ve waked up in a nice homicidal
rage.”
Failing to alarm her, the dog would look sheepishly at the laughing face
and then cuddle down again at her feet to be petted.
There was another side to his play of indifference and of wrath. True,
he would toss his head and back away, barking, when Robert or myself
tried to pat him. But at the quietly spoken word, “Treve!”, he would
come straight up to us and, if need be, stand statue-like for an hour at
a time, while he was groomed or otherwise handled.
In brief, he was the naughtiest and at the same time the most
unfailingly obedient dog I have owned. No matter how far away he might
be, the single voicing of his name would bring him to me in a swirling
rush.
In the show-ring he was a problem. At times he showed as proudly and as
spectacularly as any attitude-striking tragedian. Again, if he did not
chance to like his surroundings or if the ring-side crowd displeased
him, he prepared to loaf in slovenly fashion through his paces on the
block and in the parade. At such times the showing of Treve became as
much an art as is the guiding of a temperamental race-horse to victory.
It called for tact; even for trickery.
In the first place, during these fits of ill-humour, he would start
around the ring, in the preliminary parade, with his tail arched high
over his back; although he knew, as well as did I, that a collie’s tail
should be carried low, in the ring.
I commanded: “Tail down!” Down would come the tail. But at the same time
would come a savage growl and a sensational snap at my wrist. The
spectators pointed out to one another the incurably fierce collie.
Fellow-exhibitors in the ring would edge away. The judge—if he were an
outsider—would eye Treve with strong apprehension.
It was the same when I whispered, “Foot out!” as he deliberately turned
one white front toe inward in coming to a halt on the judging block. A
similar snarl and feather-light snap followed the command.
The worst part of the ordeal came when the judge began to “go over” him
with expert hands, to test the levelness of his mouth, the spring of his
ribs, his general soundness and the texture of his coat. An exhibitor is
not supposed to speak to a judge in the ring except to answer a
question. But if the judge were inspecting Treve for the first time, I
used to mumble conciliatingly, the while:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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