The Press: Bark with Bite

In its self-assigned mission of mother-henning the interests of all its readers, the Cleveland Press (circ. 314,053), under able Editor Louis B. Seltzer, 61, carries news specially tailored to the city’s 24 foreign-nationality groups, hands out booklets to mothers on the care and feeding of babies, follows golden-wedding anniversaries with fond attention. But of all the Press’s features, perhaps none has a more faithful following than a weekly column called “Kennel and Leash,” by Dog Editor Maxwell Riddle, 52, whose bark generally has plenty of bite.

For 20 years a dog columnist and a roving judge of dog shows, Riddle has been bitten only once, at a show years ago in Tennessee. The offending entry, a basset hound, paid dearly for its bootleg nip: it was disqualified on the spot. Riddle is devoted to man’s best friend (“I’m just a sucker for dogs”), but he considers biting (especially Riddle) the unpardonable sin. To a lady asking how to cure her dog of chewing on the baby, Riddle replied tersely: “With a .45 pistol.”

On an average day Columnist Riddle will field 40 such calls from readers, whose questions are as encyclopedic in scope as Riddle’s grasp of the subject. He is rarely stumped. Some samples:

Q. How can I stop my dog from jumping on the bed and wetting it? A. Put mousetraps on the bed.

Q. How can we cure our dog of barking? A. Create situations which will make the dog bark. Then throw cans at him.

Q. My neighbor always mixes horse manure with food given his dog. Is this good? A. Horse manure is rich in riboflavin, but it would be better to buy vitamin-B compounds.

Q. If I tied an asafetida bag around my bitch’s neck, would it keep male dogs away? A. No.

Max Riddle has been a dog lover from youth. His father, a hearse manufacturer in Ravenna, Ohio, bred bloodhounds; Riddle himself owns a Belgian sheep dog and a Brittany spaniel. Max broke into journalism as turf editor for Scripps-Howard in Cleveland, but horses were not his meat. Invited by the Press in 1939 to write about dogs, Riddle has since expanded into kindred fields. Besides his dog column he writes another devoted to all manner of animals, is an authority on most zoo animals, several kinds of lizards, and the diet of pet snakes (start with raw hamburger and worm, gradually reduce the worm content to zero).

He also travels up to 35,000 miles a year inspecting dogs on a global scale, recently returned from a world tour during which he judged shows in Honolulu, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Ceylon, added still another breed (the Ceylonese sinhala) to the 100 he is already qualified to judge. “I never had so many dogs try to bite me in my life,” said Riddle, who nonetheless got back unscarred. “Maybe I didn’t smell right.”