A Flawed Beauty

Like extraordinary fashion accessories, poodles with topiary cuts and tracts of shaved skin on legs and haunches trot alongside their owners. A spaniel in a shiny pink satin snood waits mournfully in a cage. The dog days of summer are in full swing in Britain, a time when canine events are staged almost nonstop throughout the country. At this year's East of England Championship Show, dogs with show names reminiscent of wartime coded messages — Mariglen Force the Pace with Becksett, Sequentia Reflection in Arabin — compete for titles and trophies. In between the primping and tense sessions with nervous owners...