I ended up at the antique dog show on a whim. It was one of those bird egg blue days in early September, seventy degrees, only a breath of wind. For as long as I could remember, the show had been in a big field in Fancy Town, but I’d never gone. There was something fresh and shifting in that clear, dry day. I slathered on sunscreen, packed a hat and some water, and drove over the mountain to Fancy Town.

Out on the broad, green lawn, the dogs were lined up by breed and color. The first row held the Collies. They all pointed south, grouped in merle, sable, and tricolor. The sun glinted off their polished metal and hide forms as they poised, stock still, heads at attention, tails erect. None of them were running. The proud enthusiasts sat beside the dogs in lawn chairs, some with coolers and an umbrella, some with tucked-in t-shirts and khakis, some with ornate and disproportionate hats, at least among the Corgis. Several large white tents manufactured shade and sold various breed-related paraphernalia: beer mugs, throw pillows, burlap shopping bags, mouse pads, stickers, and eyeglass cases.

Visitors mingled among the antique dogs, some surveying them from afar, some peeking under the bodies, discussing various organs, their sources and repair techniques. Enthusiasts whispered of top speeds and tooted the eons of hours it took to rustle the dogs up into this tip-top chrome-shining shape. By the pavilion, the Labradors, popular for their storage space, ease of use, and country leisure look, attracted the largest crowd.

I admit, not knowing the details of the enthusiasts’ language myself, I often had little idea what they were talking about. I was lucky if I could tell whether they were discussing a pancreas or a thyroid or something to do with the legs. What I was actually excited about was watching them start up and finally get underway. At noon, they were to have a parade.

To pass the quarter hour until twelve, I stopped by a St. Bernard, brindle and white with a black mask. The dog was about six feet tall at the head with perfectly shined rivets over the curving metal neck and rump, the torso shapely and fully cushioned, covered with brushed suede, the tail meticulously haired. She carried a noble look in her reflective glass eyes. I bent slightly at the waist and inclined my head this way and that, examining the intricate folds of the ears.

Her enthusiast stood. “I call her Bernadette. Got her in Mürren. A 1949 St. Bernard.”

I had already picked up some of the key phrases. There wasn’t much needed to get an enthusiast off on a wordy gallop. “Did you restore her yourself?”

He rested his hand on the antique dog’s back. “Oh sure, she needed some work. Liver all gunked up, joints locked, kidneys completely shot. Hide’s original though––shrunken and restretched––nice tooled finish.”

I nodded and stooped to run my fingers over the luster of the bold chromium paws.

“But you’ll have that with ’49s. Dog’s 74 years old for Pete’s sake. Took me ten years off and on to find all the intestine parts. Hard to locate this size jejunum even online these days. I finally got them all connected up. Teeth of course are original, those last a long while, don’t tend to break down. See––” He gestured for me to follow. I lowered my glasses and studied with solemn admiration the lines of pearly whites as he drew back the curtain of the mouth.

“And the bladder?” I prompted.

“Age tends to get those first. Starts leaking. You find yourself cleaning up spots all over the driveway, checking the levels, filling her up. Takes a lot of liquid in general to keep these dogs running. I got to bleed the entire system every couple months. Believe it or not, she takes thirteen liters.” He crossed his arms and shook his head in pleased disbelief.

I pressed my lips together and widened my eyes. “Thirteen! Indeed!”

The man beamed. “Would you like to see the lungs?”

“Well, I suppose if it isn’t too much trouble.”

He wrapped his arms around the dog, pressed himself to the body, and laid the antique St. Bernard down gently on the grass on her right side. The eyes goggling and rattling, he reached his hand around the side of the chest until he found a small spring-loaded lever. The flap of a door, maybe a foot wide, lifted straight up.

He raised his eyebrows and smiled at me conspiratorially. “I went with a gull-wing.”

I had to admit I found it impressive.

With the thorax open, the thick, supple leather lungs drew my gaze. “You can’t even imagine the air intake when these fire up––” his voice rose, straining as he carried on. A glimmer of red appeared just underneath the curved bottom edge of the lung. I removed my glasses, blinking reverently.

“Is that the heart?” I interrupted.

He gently swept away the anterior portion of the left lung to expose a bright red object about the size of an alarm clock in the shape of a Valentine heart. It ticked like the cuckoo clock in my grandparent’s living room, steady and crisp in the wall-to-wall carpet on silent summer afternoons. In the center of the heart was a rectangular panel with a number: 00074.12. The decimal numerals flipped like the arrival board of an old train station.

“Bernadette’s odometer,” he said. “Measures every moment of her heart’s life.”

“Is it original?” I listened to the awe in my voice and realized I was beginning to sound like an enthusiast myself.

“Of course. Everything else on the antique dog wears out and needs replacement––even the lungs stretch and grow thin––but as soon as the heart goes, that’s it. There’s nothing you can do to make the dog run anymore. Basically just a pile of scrap organs. But not to worry!” He took out a chamois and worked at some invisible fleck on the bright, optimistic nose. “This heart is Swiss-made, strong, precise, reliable.” He sidled up to me. “The best there ever was.”

The PA system crackled and whistled. A tall man with a mustache approached the podium. “The parade will begin in five minutes! Please start your dogs! We will first proceed with the terriers.”

A frenzy of activity burst from the field. Mouths were unzipped, thoraxes shut, the last injections of oil applied to stifles and hocks, a final polish of a paw, an unfurling of a tail. Leashes clanked around necks. Enthusiasts grabbed handfuls of Milk Bones from the large platter in the tent. Others reached into their coolers and drew out sides of beef or freeze-dried squirrels. The dogs began to start up with a coughing, baying, howling, yipping cacophony. A few backfired in oppressive, sulfurous clouds. I overheard one enthusiast bragging that his Cocker Spaniel started with only the quietest pop of a Ziploc bag.

I couldn’t help but watch one lady with a terrier, something Scottish I guessed, though I wasn’t quite sure of the make or model. It was small and dull, the chromium paws tarnished, the body scratched, one eye cracked – but there was a certain pugnacious charm to its compact nearness to the ground. She took a small bone and inserted it into the mouth, rotating it as if she were winding a clock. For all that she pushed it back in the molars and up in the canines, and tickled it between the incisors, all she got was a weak shudder and wheeze.

The dogs began to move. I paced back and forth, glancing in all directions. Some dogs creaked, some rasped, some moved with jerky spurts, some purred along with a magnificent float, tails snapping in the wind. The sun sparkled in the line of eager glass eyes. The poor terrier still had not started. The woman lay him down on the grass, slid open the thoracic door and began using something like a toilet plunger to compress the polyester windbags in quick succession. Yip, yip, yip, YIP! The terrier leapt up, trembling all over, and stuttered to the front of the line.

I watched the stiff, puffing parade as the noon sun beat down with abandon. Every antique dog was beautiful in some way: in its bearing, style, sheen, or simply the tenor of its voice. An hour in, a 1978 Bloodhound began to wail in a high, thin continuous screech. “Overheating,” the enthusiasts murmured. In the shade of the pavilion, the Bloodhound crouched on the grass while steam escaped from both ends, but it made out okay.

After the show, I must admit I considered finding an antique dog for myself. For weeks, I drove around the countryside, flirting with For Sale signs, eyeing the old chained dogs in front yards fenced in with weeds. But I came to my senses. I had neither the time, money, patience, nor skill to restore an antique dog. I contented myself with returning to the show the next year.

Again, the weather was bright, the sky stretched with a few high cirrus clouds. I couldn’t help looking for my friend and Bernadette, but they weren’t with the other St. Bernards. They weren’t with the antique toiling dog demonstrations, or the special displays of hero dogs, dogs from Europe, or dogs you’ve seen in films. It was only when I passed the volunteer tent next to the announcement pavilion that I saw him, sitting by himself in a wooden folding chair. He recognized me at once, waved me over, and offered me a glass of fresh strawberry lemonade. We chatted about the weather. From time to time, a cloud blocked the sun. We pointed out notable antique dogs; the 1975 Greyhound was almost as large as a bus. Then we turned to our drinks.

“Where’s Bernadette?” I asked, swallowing.

He frowned, rocking on his heels, and took another sip.

“I’ve had some bad luck this year. I’ve always kept my antique dogs in a small timber-frame barn around the back of my house. It’s warm and dry, free of mice. This past summer we had storm after storm. Pounding and thrashing rain and thunder. One day in July, I woke up just before dawn to a great, white noise over the hills. It wasn’t like most storms. It boomed and vibrated on jagged, snapping legs and marched right toward my house. The wind arrived in a wall. The power went out. When the storm passed, an orange glow began to rise. I looked out the kitchen window and––by God––the barn was up in flames. Help came, but it was too late. The heat had warped and melted poor Bernadette into a formless black lump.”

Across the field, a new electric wolf hybrid started with a long, low howl. The man straightened and looked me in the eye.

“In the middle of the wreck, I found her old heart, untouched, the same as before.” He patted the interior pocket of his tweed jacket. “I carry it around with me everywhere. It doesn’t tick, but it’s the strangest thing––” He drew out the red heart and held it so I could see the odometer. “You wouldn’t believe it––her numbers are still counting up.”

Alice McCormick is a writer and veterinarian based in northern Vermont. Her work has appeared in The Maine Review, Oh Reader, and flashglass. In 2023, she attended the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. She also enjoys vegetable gardening, books from the 19th century, coffee and endurance sports.

Published April 15 2024