Beware of Owner

UNDER THE CLOAK OF NIGHT -- With several local dog shows impending, and the canine circuit advancing fast, four interested associates convene a secret meeting.

Their mission: to expose the dirty underbelly of dog showing.

“I’ll talk only on the condition of anonymity,” says Lynda Beltz (not her real name). “This could end my career in dogs.”

“Don’t even mention my breed,” says Edgar Simmons (not his real name either). “Say I specialize in African sneeze hounds.”

These folks have a bone to pick--not with the mannered many who show their dogs for the family fun of it, but with an irksome minority of brawlers, bribers and backstabbers who make showing a dog-eat-dog endeavor.

As requested, all identifying details have been changed; according to this group, people can be drop dead serious about their canines. “Like the Weimaraner woman in West Covina,” says Simmons, soberly. “The judge was about to officially record her win when he had a stroke. He’s keeled over on the ground and she’s yelling, ‘Mark the book! Mark the book!’ ”

That’s nothing, asserts Debbie Ehrlich, compared to what she’s seen. Ehrlich is a handler who cares for and shows other people’s dogs as well as her own. Her pet peeve is dog professionals who fawn over rich, elderly ladies, angling for an inheritance. “If you’re old enough and rich enough, these people will flirt with you,” she says.

Especially if you have a terminal disease, says Beltz, also a handler.

“Oh you.” Ehrlich gives Beltz an affectionate shove.

“There was this one Chihuahua breeder who had his nose tucked so far up this woman’s you-know-what I don’t know how he could breathe,” says Beltz. “He’d pooper scoop for her--nothing was too menial. Of course when the old lady croaked, she left the entire estate to him, including a bunch of houses in a real nice part of town. And we’re not talking about some two-bedroom shack in Pacoima. I mean big properties, the kind where you put large animals that have four hoofs and wear shoes, shall we say.”

If you’re in dogs, you’re in dogs for life, explains Dave Martin, Beltz’s biggest client. “It’s like old people driving cars. You can’t get ‘em to stop.”

What really annoys Martin are “mercy wins.” “Remember Irma Egbert and her bowlegged schnauzer? Poor Irma, let her win, this’ll be her last dog.” Did she finally die? Yes. But not any time she was showing that schnauzer.

Mercy winners and gold-diggers may be annoying, says Beltz, but they don’t hold a candle to bad-mouthers, politickers, pullers of strings and plotters of evil.

The rest of the group is quick to concur. Ehrlich says that, if someone wants to undermine you, “they’ll call up a judge and say, ‘I guess you’ll be putting up that basset hound when you go out to California to judge this weekend.’ The judge goes, ‘What are you talking about?’ ‘Oh, well Debbie Ehrlich is telling everyone she can’t lose under you.’ ‘Oh really? We’ll see about that.’ And Debbie Ehrlich, who hasn’t said any such thing, walks into the ring and gets totally blindsided.”

If all else fails, there’s always cash or merchandise down. “Talk about favors passed,” pipes up Beltz. “Remember all those spaniels owned by Mrs. Boyington?” Callie Boyington was the matriarch in a family that owns a major linen manufacturing operation. “There never was a judge that ever put up her dog that didn’t have a houseful of matching towels.”

“Of course there’s all the sexual favors,” says Simmons. “It’s not uncommon for people to exhibit to someone who they’ve had sex with in the last two hours.”

Martin was going to say the last half-hour.

“No way,” says Simmons.

“Way. Oh yes, way.”

One old trick used to sabotage the competition is to kick over a grooming table during the targeted dog’s “independent movement,” when it must trot the length of the ring by itself and is susceptible to distraction. The late Lina Basquette--Golden Era luminary of screen and stage, leading lady in Cecil B. DeMille’s final silent film, “The Godless Girl”--was best known in the dog world for deliberately leaving her bait pouch open as she jogged her pet around the ring. Pieces of liver would fall out on the grass, distracting the competition behind her.

Ehrlich is itching to tell a story. “Oh you’ll like this one,” she says. “There were these two top breeders, Tony and Sandy Cutler. Their Viszla was always competing with my basset hound for best of show. Then I started to lose early in each show. Sandy would come to the edge of the ring whenever my dog was being judged, and she would stand there with her arms folded and I would lose.

“I used to joke with my husband, ha ha, I guess she’s pulling some strings to get me to lose so much. Well, six months later, my husband and I were staying in our motor home at a show in San Diego, a few spots down from the Cutlers. Around midnight we took our dog out for her late-night constitutional, and what do we hear but Tony and Sandy Cutler having this big knock-down drag-out fight.

“So of course we stop to listen, and all of a sudden Sandy goes, ‘Help you?! I don’t help you?! I can’t count the number of times on my fingers and toes I’ve put the stoppers on that damn basset hound!”

On the day of the dog show, a conniver like Sandy Cutler arrives early to study the catalog. Then she’ll move within earshot of the judge and start insulting the competition in order to undermine the judge’s confidence. “Whenever someone says, ‘That’s a gorgeous schipperke,’ she’ll say, ‘Yeah, but look at the feet on it. They’re flat as pancakes,’ ” explains Martin. “So the judge gets in the ring and goes, ‘The chow with the yellow eyes and the Dalmatian with too-few spots and the crippled poodle, gee I haven’t heard anything bad about that shiba-inu, and that’s a top handler, I think I’ve seen his picture. It must be the shiba-inu today.”

Simmons adds that it’s not unusual for a judge to assess a dog by its reputation, not by its merits; consequently, Dog News, a magazine read by judges, is fat with full-page advertisements--between $200 and $1,100 a pop--touting particular canines.

“A few years back, there was this handler that had a champion Pomeranian that everyone knew was going to win,” says Simmons. “But first he was supposed to show another Pomeranian, a non-champion. So the handler comes up to ringside, and his assistant gives him the lead of his non-champion dog. He grabs the lead, walks in the ring, pulls out a piece of liver, looks down, and his assistant had given him this No. 1 dog in the country, best in show, multiple multiple multiple wins, to go in the ring for this lowly class dog.

“He thinks, ‘Oh my God, what am I going to do? I’m going to show the dog.’ So he shows the dog, the judge puts him second or third in the class, he takes the ribbon, puts the dog under his arm, trots back to his tent, puts the dog down, changes arm bands, picks the dog back up, walks back into the ring and goes best of breed with the same dog and on to best in show. That was the biggest laugh for so long.”

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Talking the Dog

Glossary of language likely to be overheard at local dog shows:

* To “put the stoppers” on a dog--to use underhanded means, such as bribing a judge, to ensure that a particular dog gets defeated early in the show.

* To “put up” a dog--to award a dog best of breed, or best in group, thereby nominating it for further wins that day (such as best in show).

* To “bash” a dog--to insult a dog publicly, preferably within earshot of a judge.

* To “campaign” a dog--to promote a dog via paid advertising and other means in an attempt to make it No. 1 in the breed or No. 1 in the country.

* Brag time--a few minutes set aside at the end of every club meeting, when members can opt to throw a couple of bucks in the kitty and boast about their dogs’ recent wins.

* Handler--someone who is paid to show and care for dogs.

* Bait--baked, dried liver fed to dogs as incentive at shows.

* To “finish” a dog--give the dog its last few points for a championship.

BE THERE

Malibu Kennel Club

All Breed Show and Trial, Sat. and Sun., Pierce College Campus, 6201 Winnetka Ave., Woodland Hills. For more information, call (213) 727-0136.

For dates, times and entry blanks for All Breed Shows throughout the year, call Jack Bradshaw, (213) 727-0136.