Growing Up in a House Full of Perfect Dogs

With four days to go before the prestigious 2019 Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, Mara Flood is spending a good chunk of her waking hours keeping Poe, a two-year-old smooth collie (full name: Travler SugarNSpice Witches Do Come Blue), from impulsively humping the young female in heat who’s been staying in the next room over. Flood has been taking the two outside in shifts, making sure one or the other is always in a crate. It’s a hassle, but then again, it’s right on schedule for a dog of Poe’s age: “He’s my teenage boy,” Flood laughs. “He doesn’t even eat. He’s like, On Sunday, Poe will travel from the Floods’ home in Orange County, New York, to Manhattan, along with five-year-old Tiger (SugarNSpice Hear Me Roar) and potentially eight-month-old Cherry (SugarNSpice Cherry On Top), to show at the Westminster Dog Show on Monday. (Flood will decide on Cherry’s participation “Sunday—maybe on the way out the door.”) So when Flood, a vegan, cooks up the assortment of steak, chicken, hot dog, and liver that she’ll use as bait for the collies in the ring at Westminster, she’ll add lots of extra seasoning for Poe’s bait—because in the ring, “you could have a bitch in season three dogs behind you.” When you take an easily sidetracked dog like