“How old is this pup?” he asked the woman who was tugging at the boundingly excited baby’s leash.
“Six months, yesterday!” was the garrulous answer. “Isn’t he a little beauty, Judge? Two days younger and he’d have been too young to show. He just comes in the law. It’s lucky he wasn’t born two days later.”
“No,” gently contradicted McGilead, petting the downy little chap. “It’s unlucky. Both for you and for him. The rules admit a pup to the show ring at six months. The rules are harsh, for they make him compete with dogs almost double his age. The puppy limit is from six to twelve months in shows. I don’t want you to feel bad when I refuse to judge this little fellow. It isn’t your fault, nor his, that he hasn’t begun to develop. But it would be like putting a child of five into competitive examination at school with a lad of twenty.”
Motioning her gently to a far corner, he rasped at the others. “Walk your dogs, please!”
The procession started around the ring. Presently, McGilead waved the Master to take Bruce to one side. Then he placed one after another of the remaining dogs on the central block and went over them with infinite care. At the end of the inspection, he beckoned the worried Master to bring Bruce to the block. After running his hands lightly over and under the pup, he turned to the ring-steward, who stood waiting with a ledger and a handful of ribbons.
Writing down four numbers in the book, McGilead took a blue and a red and a yellow and a white ribbon and advanced again toward the waiting exhibitors.
(And this, by the way, is the Big Moment, to any dog handler—this instant when the judge is approaching with the ribbons. For sheer thrill, it makes roulette and horse-racing seem puerile.)
To the Master, the little judge handed the blue ribbon. Then he awarded the red “second” and the yellow “third” and the white “reserve” to three others.
The recipient of the reserve snorted loudly.
“Say!” he complained. “Better judges than you have said this pup of mine is the finest collie of his age in America. What do you mean by giving him a measly reserve? What’s the matter with him?”