The day was stewingly hot; the drive was long. Show-goers crowded around the splendid dog before the judging began. Bit by bit, Treve’s nerves began to fray. We kept him off his bench and in the shade, and we did what we could to steer admirers away from him. But it was no use. By the time the collie division was called into the tented ring, Treve was profoundly unhappy and cranky.
He slouched in, with no more “form” to him than a plow horse. With the rest of his class (“Open, sable-and-white”), he went through the parade. Judge Cooper called the contestants one by one up to the block; Treve last of all. My best efforts could not rouse the dog from his sullen apathy.
It was then that Robert Friend played his trump card. Standing just outside the ring, among the jam of spectators, he called excitedly:
“Wolf! I’ll give it to Wolf!”
I don’t know what the other spectators thought of this outburst. But I know the effect it had on Treve.
In a flash the great dog was alert and tense; his tulip ears up, his whole body at attention, the look of eagles in his eyes as he scanned the ringside for a glimpse of his friend, Wolf.
Judge Cooper took one long look at him. Then, without so much as laying a hand on the magnificently-showing Treve, he awarded him the blue ribbon in his class.
I had sense enough to take the dog into one corner and to keep him there, quieting and steadying him until the Winners’ Class was called. As I led him into the ring, then, to compete with the other classes’ blue ribboners, Robert called once more to the absent Wolf. Again the trick served. The collie moved and stood as if galvanized into sparkling life.
Cooper handed me the Winners’ rosette; the rosette whose acquisition made Treve a Champion of Record!
It was only about a year ago. In that little handful of time, the judge who made him a champion—the new-made champion himself—the dog whose name roused him from his apathy in the ring—all three are dead. I don’t think a white sportsman like Cooper would mind my linking his name with two such supreme collies, in this word of necrology. Cooper—Treve—Wolf!