The Mistress had an inkling of his fated ordeal when she read the Kennel Club rule that no dog could be taken from the Garden, except at stated times, from the moment the show should begin, at ten A.M. Wednesday morning, until the hour of its close, at ten o'clock Saturday night. For twelve hours a day—for four consecutive days—every entrant must be there. By paying a forfeit fee, dog owners might take their pets to some nearby hotel or stable, for the remainder of the night and early morning—a permission which, for obvious reasons, would not affect most dogs.
"But Lad's never been away from home a night in his life!" exclaimed the Mistress in dismay. "He'll be horribly lonely there, all that while—especially at night."
By this time, with the mysterious foreknowledge of the best type of thoroughbred collie, Lad began to be aware that something unusual had crept into the atmosphere of The Place. It made him restless, but he did not associate it with himself—until the Mistress took to giving him daily baths and brushings.
Always she had brushed him once a day, to keep his shaggy coat fluffy and burnished; and the lake had supplied him with baths that made him as clean as any human. But never had he undergone such searching massage with comb and brush as was now his portion. Never had he known such soap-infested scrubbings as were now his daily fate, for the week preceding the show.
As a result of these ministrations his wavy fur was like spun silk in texture; and it stood out all over him like the hair of a Circassian beauty in a dime museum. The white chest and forepaws were like snow. And his sides and broad back and mighty shoulders shone like dark bronze.
He was magnificent—but he was miserable. He knew well enough, now, that he was in some way the center of all this unwonted stir and excitement which pervaded The Place. He loathed change of any sort—a thoroughbred collie being ever an ultra-conservative. This particular change seemed to threaten his peace; also it kept his skin scraped with combs and his hair redolent of nasty-smelling soaps.
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.
All over the East, during these last days before the Show, hundreds of high-bred dogs were undergoing preparation for an exhibition which to the beholder is a delight—and which to many of the canine exhibits is a form of unremitting torture. To do justice to the Master and the Mistress, they had no idea—then—of this torture. Otherwise all the blue ribbons ever woven would not have tempted them to subject their beloved chum to it.
In some kennels Airedales were "plucked," by hand, to rid them of the last vestige of the soft gray outer coat which is an Airedale's chief natural beauty—and no hair of which must be seen in a show. "Plucking" a dog is like pulling live hairs from a human head, so far as the sensation goes. But show-traditions demand the anguish.
In other kennels, bull-terriers' white coats were still further whitened by the harsh rubbing of pipeclay into the tender skin. Sensitive tails and still more sensitive ears were sandpapered, for the victims' greater beauty—and agony. Ear-interiors, also, were shaved close with safety-razors.