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see to my dogs.

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    A ccording to American Kennel Club rules, Eve wasn’t eligible to be shown until she reached six months of age. Since she was a Poodle, however, preparations for her career had begun much earlier than that. For starters, I had to register her with the AKC, which meant coming up with a show name. Because Faith’s litter was the first I’d ever bred, it also meant that I needed to choose a kennel name for myself.
    A kennel name is a very useful thing to have, even for someone like me who is in all likelihood never going to be more than a small, hobby breeder. For one thing, it makes for easy identification of a dog’s origins. Any Standard Poodle owner looking back through his dog’s pedigree and finding such kennel names as Rimskittle, Syrena, Alekai, or Graphic can rest assured that his Poodle descends from quality stock produced by breeders who placed a premium on doing right by the breed.
    Secondly, affixing your own kennel name to stock you’ve bred is a matter of personal satisfaction. It announces to the dog show world that these are animals you are justifiably proud to be associated with.
    Many people chose prefixes that derive in some way from their own names, or those of their children or loved ones. This tendency accounts for the proliferation of monikers such as Car-bob, Suestan, ShirlRob, and Bren-dawyn. Having tried out a couple of possible combinations, notably Meldave (sounded like the name of a character on Seinfeld ), Mel-tra (definitely an alien planet), and Samanie (not going there!), I quickly decided to follow Aunt Peg’s example and simply opt for a name that sounded agreeable. With high hopes for the future of my small endeavor and a nod toward the joy my two Poodles had already brought me, I chose Elysian. Eve became, in the eyes of the American Kennel Club, Elysian Eve.
    Like her dam, Eve was blessed with a profuse, fast growing coat, and when it comes to getting a Poodle ready for the show ring, hair is all important. Poodles are allowed to be shown in three different trims. The continental and the English saddle are the more ornate clips, worn by adult dogs, and familiar to anyone who has ever seen a Poodle being exhibited. At nine months of age, Eve was wearing the puppy trim which allowed for only her face, her feet, and the base of her tail to be clipped. A thick blanket of hair, shaped to follow her outline, covered the rest of her body.
    So far we’d been to a handful of shows together. Young as she was, Eve was showing mostly for socialization. The point of the exercise was simply to go and have fun. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean I could skimp on the preparation. Saturday night, I gave Eve a bath and blew her coat dry, an exacting process that takes every bit as long as it sounds like it would. I also fielded a quick call from Sam, home at his house in Redding doing the same to his Standard Poodle, Champion Cedar Crest Scimitar, more familiarly known as Tar.
    Sam said he was just calling to check in. I thought— but didn’t say—that I’d have appreciated the sentiment more if it had taken place during the time at the end of the previous year that he had been missing from my life. Then there hadn’t been any phone calls at all.
    Once he was back, Sam seemed to think that we should simply take up where we’d left off. Pardon me, but I’m not quite that easy.
    I’d resisted; Sam had pursued. Eventually, that bit of yin-ing and yang-ing around had led to the unlikely arrangement we now found ourselves in. We were—once again—dating, and trying to redefine the state of our relationship one step at a time.
    All I can say is that it’s a sad commentary when your love life has been reduced to an agenda more befitting to recovery.
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    Sunday’s dog show was being held in Rhode Island. Aside from Eve and Tar, Eve’s littermate Zeke, now owned by Aunt Peg, was also entered. As a