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An underdog becomes top dog
(by Ed Flynn - February 27, 2008)
I guess you could say an underdog finally won the dog show when a beagle named Uno garnered Best of Show last week at the Westminster Kennel Club’s competition in
Madison
Square
Garden .
OK, Uno looked a bit pampered and even somewhat sissified with his meticulously groomed coat and immaculate floppy ears but he couldn’t suppress the hound in him when, after being judged as superior to a Sealyham, a Weimaraner, an Australian Shepherd and an Akita, (Are those really dogs?) he pointed his nose toward the ceiling and bayed in triumph like a common mutt.
“He’s a people’s dog, a merry little hound,” his handler Aaron Wilkerson said.
And watching Uno strut his stuff I couldn’t help but think that he had struck a blow for the common man and his common dog everywhere.
The Westminster Kennel Club – even the name sounds snotty – has been picking winners for 100 years now and despite the fact that the beagle has consistently been listed as among ’s most popular breeds none has ever won the Best of Show title. Until now.
Uno brought back memories of Buster. Buster was my dog when I was a boy and he was a merry little hound, too, even though he would never have won any shows. In fact, he wouldn’t have even been qualified to enter because, like an illegal immigrant, he had no papers and his ancestry was in doubt. Mom and dad said they thought he was mostly terrier but he had floppy ears like Uno’s so maybe he was really part beagle, too.
Buster and I grew up together. He had been a Christmas present back when my birthdays were still recorded in single digits and the manner of his arrival became one of those lasting family tales – retold every Christmas – because Santa Claus, a.k.a. dad, had tied the puppy to the Christmas tree and in the middle of the night he had pulled the tree over.
Buster may have never gone to doggy school but that didn‘t mean he wasn’t smart. For one thing, he could tell time. When I went to school he apparently knew almost to the minute when I was due to come home because, according to mom, he would always go to the front door and sit there until he saw me coming and then he would jump up and down and bark loudly enough for me to hear a block away. And on those days when I was either kept after school or lingered for some activity, he would patiently stand watch, like some nervous guardian, until I finally appeared.
Buster and I had many adventures together but what I remember most fondly are our trips to the store for a few items for dinner. Back then, in those days before World War II, no one had freezers – many people even still had iceboxes instead of refrigerators – and as a result everyone had to shop regularly for fresh food.
“I want you to go to ‘The Avenue’,” mom would tell me when I got home from school and Buster, who in addition to telling time could also understood English, would run for the closet door where his leash hung on the door knob and begin to bark. Mom, incidentally, always referred to the then small shopping area on Washington Avenue in
Bergenfield as “The Avenue,” probably a throwback to her own youth in Hell’s Kitchen when everyone shopped on Ninth Avenue.
When we got to Butler’s Grocery, Buster would sit patiently in front of the counter while Mr. Butler filled the order but once he started to put the items in a bag, Buster would get up on his feet and bark until at least one item had been put in a separate paper bag that he could carry in his mouth. Then we would start the journey home, Buster with his bag clenched firmly between his teeth, prancing like a circus pony while I followed behind.
“Say ‘Hello’ to your mother for me, Edward,” Mrs. Jacobi would call from her front porch as we went by her house because in those days it seemed everyone in town knew everyone else by name, a mixed blessing for young boys should they ever get involved in mischief.
That, however, was all a long time ago now and my memory of many things has begun to fade like the yellowing images in a family album, but not my memories of Buster. I can still recall the night when Buster was about 14 years old and I was 16 and we were home alone and he seemed to have trouble breathing and I sat on the floor, cradling him in my arms and pleading with him not to die.
But he did.
And, in retrospect, that was probably the night my childhood ended as well.
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