Over at the judging for Waggiest Tail, things were getting acrimonious.
‘That bloody woman,’ my new acquaintance muttered. We were sitting behind the rope barrier in the front row and had formed a bond over a serious injustice in Prettiest Bitch. ‘I’m pretty sure she threw this category three, four years back. I happen to know – for a fact – that she made her husband stay overnight in a Travelodge. Dog’s got awful separation anxiety. Husband comes to the park, sitting round the corner. Once the Waggiest Tail starts up, she texts him, and he appears in the dog’s eyeline. Dog starts wagging fit to bust. First prize. Disgrace.’
‘Surely not,’ I said. ‘You’d be surprised what people are capable of,’ he said.
The easy winner was a gent with white hair and beard, an uncanny pair for his West Highland Terrier
All around the country at this time of year, in parks and fêtes, councils and parishes organise dog shows. They are often under the impression that it’s a lovely way to bring people together in good humour, letting the whole dog-owning and dog-fancying community come together in a spirit of fun. You might win a rosette and a bag of treats, but it’s the taking part that counts. What could go wrong?
Beneath the forced smiles and applause for the winner in your dog’s chosen category, feelings run very high, sometimes well concealed, sometimes not. Complaints are everywhere. About the criteria apparently used by the judges: ‘And that bloody councillor just gave every rosette to a dog who was with a small girl, even bloody ugly ones.’ About perceived attempts to game the category: ‘That dog went to that Japanese groomer in Covent Garden yesterday, he told me.’ The usual camaraderie between dog people starts to fray, and will have to be made up again on the Monday morning walk.
Greta, perhaps bored with the human-level tone of complaint and resentment, was tugging. She had seen one of her best friends, an insanely glamorous King Charles Spaniel called Eliza. I excused myself and went over to where Eliza was standing next to a pair of policemen. I wouldn’t have thought the attendance of the Met was required, but there again, you never know. Eliza was already thickly barnacled with rosettes, and greeted the ungarlanded Greta with an air of faint condescension. ‘She won something last year,’ I said apologetically. ‘I think her heart just wasn’t in it today.’ The policemen were conducting a hearty community outreach programme. ‘It’s Most Handsome Boy up next,’ one was saying. ‘I think I should really be going in for this myself.’ No one responded, so he said it again. ‘It’s really nice,’ his colleague said, ‘that they give six rosettes in every category. So most people can win a prize.’ Greta and Eliza, for their different reasons, ignored this comment, affronted.
‘The judge for the next category is a lady called Jackie,’ the compere said over the tannoy. ‘She’s a personal trainer from Putney. Personal trainer to the mums of Putney. Not to the dads of Putney? No. Apparently not. Ah well. Anyway here she is.’ The competitors for Dogs Who Look Most Like Their Owners filed into the ring, parading round in fierce concentration. One lady had put a pair of sunglasses on her pooch to match her own. The easy winner, however, was a gent with white hair and beard, an almost uncanny pair for his white West Highland terrier. For once the decision met with agreement.
‘I don’t know who all these people are!’ a dog-walking friend greeted me. ‘You’re the first face I recognise. Do you think they come from miles away?’ ‘Some people just don’t care for it one bit,’ I said. Yesterday I had met a corgi-owning friend, whose face had darkened when I asked if Atticus was going in for anything. ‘Not again,’ he had said. A judge last year had asked, in full seriousness, whether Atticus was ‘some sort of corgi mix’. The corgi competition had been reduced to an extraordinarily hairy beast, waddling round the ring, and Atticus was now at home, lazing and shedding all over the sofa in aristocratic disdain.
Muttering was building up on the other side of the ring; a small group of discontents was gathering round my recent new acquaintance. I hoped the judge had a means of a hasty getaway. Greta had now failed to make a mark in two categories and was growing restless; I thought her next category, Happiest Temperament, was not, in the circumstances, likely to prove a success.
And in any case the rain clouds were building. Keir Starmer, in his election night victory speech, had promised that he would bring the nation ‘the sunlight of hope’. Since then it had rained steadily for 60 hours. It had paused for a moment to let the Waggiest Tail take place, but now it started coming down in earnest. The band of the Tooting and Balham Sea Cadets came to the ragged end of their number and moved under shelter. In their long and adventurous career, they were not likely to come nearer to active warfare than the aftermath of Dogs Who The Judges Would Most Like to Take Home.
‘We’re off,’ I said to Eliza’s modestly disclaiming human. ‘I’ve got a lot of consoling to do.’ ‘Bad luck, Greta,’ she said. ‘I dare say she’ll get over it,’ I said. ‘In time.’
Comments