By John Littell
Photos By L.G. Patterson

An early morning fog has crept in on little cat feet, so it better be careful with all these dogs lurking around. In the parking lot, scores of RVs are hooked up to the electrical outlets, sucking in power to ignite the microwave ovens inside. A small, white dog is practicing his barking in an outdoor pen, while a pony-size Rottweiler eyes him solemnly. Thinking of breakfast, perhaps?

As the fog wisely dissipates, more and more dogs appear. Could that be Lassie? Uncle Petrie must be stuck in a hole somewhere. About 1,001 Dalmatians are cavorting around on the sparse grass, and uh-oh, here comes Cujo. He doesn’t look as if he slept very well last night.

The only canine star missing is Underdog. These are all top dogs.


For two days in March, the Columbia Missouri Kennel Club Inc. held its annual all-breed dog show, attracting 1,100 canines and about twice as many exhibitors, plus spectators, vendors, and a phalanx of judges.

The event was in full gear on a Saturday at the Boone County Fairgrounds, and then the dogs went through their paces all over again on Sunday. That’s right, there were two complete shows over the weekend, twice the work for show chairman Liz Hansen and her minions.

“I used to be chief ring steward,” she says with a smile. “Then I had my arm twisted and have been doing this for four years.”

Hansen is responsible for signing up the space and getting the American Kennel Club to license the show.

“That requires proof that we’re actively involved with the community and are promoting public education about dogs — holding classes, bringing in speakers and that kind of thing,” she says.

In consultation with other club members, she is also in charge of hiring impartial, good-natured judges.

“I’ve met some crabby judges,” she says with a laugh. “I don’t want crabby judges, I want happy judges! And we want all our exhibitors to come back next year.”


Even if he’s cute and well-behaved, you can’t just drag Fido, your Chihuahua/Newfoundland/shar-pei mix, to an American Kennel Club-sanctioned show. It doesn’t work that way. Every dog must be AKC-registered, which means the pup probably has a more distinguished bloodline than yours. (A possible exception might be Queen Elizabeth’s corgis.)

Even acquiring a purebred can be a complicated affair. Legitimate breeders are fussy about their clients.

“The goal of any good breeder is to place a dog in an appropriate home where both the animal and the owner will be happy, and the dog will not be returned,” club president Rosemary Teel says. “They will quiz you about who your vet is, how many children you have, how many grandchildren, what other animals you have, how big your yard is, and whether or not it’s fenced.”

If that sounds more like dealing with an adoption agency than a pet shop, you’re right. Top breeders follow up on their dogs, keeping track of their health and well-being. They would never sell a puppy and just walk away.

Sorry, Fido, go back to sleep.

Even if you manage to acquire a pedigreed dog, a process that may take a year, that’s only the beginning. Now you have to train him.

“There’s a misconception that you just walk in with your dog and win a prize,” says Dianne Ruetsch, club member and owner-handler-breeder of champion dachshunds and Dobermans. “These dogs are worked with daily. And they’re pampered. I go over the bodies of my dogs every single solitary day. I know if their skin has changed, I know if their noses are cold. I check their teeth and clean their ears daily.”

But regardless of their awesome ancestry, “Dogs should be pets and companions first, show dogs second,” Ruetsch adds. “And they should have a chance to perform the tasks they were bred to do.”


Inside the cavernous building, six teeny-weeny poodles are perched on their grooming tables. Each is harnessed in position as a woman in a green smock roams freely, snip-snipping away at the chain gang. Quickly, she transforms them into mobile topiaries.

A black-and-white Great Dane, the size of a Mack truck, ambles past, oblivious to the little dogs clustered around his enormous feet, and equally oblivious to the boy who is trying to control him. The mismatched duo cuts a zigzag swath through the crowd, but it’s not difficult to tell who’s boss.

A smug pug with a mug only a mother could love wants a hug, snug in the arms of her owner. She gets it.

At the announcer’s station, Raymond Ruetsch, editor of the club’s newsletter, Pooch News, is selling show catalogues between announcements. “I give a discount to pretty ladies,” he says with a smile. “Just $5. Everybody else has to pay $5.”

A woman in a black coat laughs appreciatively.

“You meet the nicest people on the dog-show circuit,” he says. “A lot of times you don’t remember their name, you remember their dog: ‘Oh, you’re Heidi’s mom.’ ”

There are three types of people competing here today. Some see dog shows as social events, an opportunity to meet old friends and discuss the gossip of the day. If their dogs don’t win, you won’t find them sulking in their tents or even in their RVs. They’ll be too busy making reservations for a gala dinner party.

Another group is looking to pile up points for their dogs. Under the byzantine AKC rules, a dog must earn 15 points, with two major wins. What that means is about as clear as a foggy day in Columbia because each breed has its own rules. Suffice it to say that once the requisite points are awarded, the dog is entitled to be called champion and can append the coveted “Ch” before its name – as in Ch K-Run’s Park Me in First. Once a dog achieves this distinction, he is called “finished,” though he’s not tossed off the circuit. He can continue to be shown, perhaps looking for a national title.

Then there are the campaigners. Not Barack and Hillary, but owners and handlers who are doggedly pursuing a national title.

Show chairman Liz Hansen is an owner-handler-breeder of standard schnauzers and a veteran campaigner. Her dog Seasar (“He was born in Sweden and that’s the way they spell Caesar.”) was best of his breed nationally for three years in a row. But he didn’t get there by being agoraphobic.

“Dog shows are held 50 times a year,” she says. “We were home only two weekends. It’s expensive and exhausting to campaign a dog and it can be very stressful. But it is worth it if you get a once-in-a-lifetime dog that good. You have to love it, love the breed, and love the competition. It takes a special kind of crazy to do what I do.”

For the casual, the determined, and the obsessed, there are two ways to show a dog. You can do it yourself or hire a professional handler.

Liz Hansen wouldn’t think of letting someone else show her dogs.

“For me, writing a check and getting a phone call saying my dog has just won a group or best in show just wouldn’t be as satisfying as standing in the ring. There’s nothing to compare with that,” she says.

Outsourcing, of course, can be even more expensive than doing it yourself, Dianne Ruetsch says, because an owner has to pay an à la carte menu of expenses.

“There are bills for board, a fee every time the handler walks into the ring, and a bonus every time a dog wins a category,” she says. “There’s even a gas surcharge these days. You can pay two to three thousand dollars a month to a handler.”


Now that the dogs are all lined up with their handlers standing next to them and the judge is in place, that’s about it, right? Not by a long shot. A dog show has more components than a Swiss watch. Lose one part and the chronometer goes haywire, telling you it’s midnight when it’s not.

First, there’s the superintendent. Not the guy with a shovel who cleans up after the dogs, but an Oklahoma company called Jack Onofrio Dog Shows Inc. This AKC-accredited outfit, one of several in the country, does the paperwork, supplies the rings and ribbons, compiles the colossal catalogue, keeps score, and posts the results on the Internet. Not only that, but they also are the bankers, accepting all entry fees, keeping a portion, and returning the rest to the CMKC.

Three representatives of the company are tucked away in a corner, busily tapping away on their laptops and making cell phone calls.

“We do about 800 shows a year,” the boss says. He looks harried, but what he doesn’t say is that without his services, the CMKC would be swamped with administrative details and unable to get the show off the ground without the help of a vast army of volunteers.

At the same table, a regional rep from the AKC is keeping tabs on the people keeping tabs on the event. She is available for consultation about her organization’s precise, if arcane, regulations, and invaluable in case of a dispute. Her job is to keep a tight leash on the show.

It is rumored that not all the kennel club members are free-spending millionaires, so a sponsor is a third indispensable player. Bob Ekle, an area manager for Nestlé-Purina Pet Care, travels the country supplying prizes, dispensing nutritional advice for canines, and providing sponsorship packages for local clubs. Drawing on more than 30 years of experience as an owner-handler-breeder of Dalmatians, the 60-year-old Columbia native says he meets friends and acquaintances at most of the 200 shows he attends every year.

As the official sponsor of the CMKC event, Purina will provide 150 pounds of dog food for Best in Show as well as a Pro Plan Grooming Bag. First in each variety group will receive a 37.5-pound bag of food and a buy-one-get-one free coupon for any of the company’s chow.


When there are more than a thousand dogs in the house, something is probably bound to go wrong. Fortunately, this weekend was accident- and disease-free for Dr. Susan Szcepanski, the show’s official veterinarian.

“Some shows I just sit around and twiddle my fingers,” she says with a laugh. “That’s taking the fire engine approach – waiting for something to happen.”

Other times, it’s a real zoo. “I’ve treated eye infections, respiratory infections, and once had a Dalmatian who got his tail slammed in a car door. In Moberly, I found a dog with an intestinal foreign body and had to perform major surgery to remove a piece of aluminum siding from him.”

A latecomer to the sport, Szcepanski, a past president of the CMKC, didn’t show her first dog until she was 26. Today, she’s the enthusiastic owner-handler-breeder of whippets and a Westminster veteran. How did she like the experience?

“It was just nuts,” she says, laughing again.

“Many people misunderstand the sport of dogs,” she adds. “As a veterinarian, I fully and completely support people going to the humane society, going to Second Chance, and getting those wonderful, wonderful crossbred dogs that are out there.

“But there are those of us who enjoy the competition, whether it’s conformation, obedience, rally, agility, lure coursing, or hunt trials. Through the AKC, we can only do that with our purebreds.”


Everybody ready to let the games begin? Wait, there’s more. You gotta have a lot of class to compete in a dog show.

There are more classes at a dog show than are taught on the city’s college campuses. First, there are the breeds – some 169 of them recognized by the AKC. Then sexism rears its politically incorrect head and divides the breeds into male and female, or dogs and bitches. Each sex is then subdivided into puppies, 12- to 18-month-olds, novice, bred by exhibitor, American bred, and open.

Young humans have a class, too. Yes, kids from ages 9 to 17 get a chance to compete in the Junior Showmanship category, where they are judged on their ability to present an animal. Even if the dog is a real dog, it doesn’t matter because it’s the handler that is being scrutinized. Not surprisingly, there are several classes of juniors.

Then there are the Obedience and Rally Trails, each with their own subset of rules and regulations. There’s a whole lotta shakin’ going on here. Whee doggies, the catalogue for the show is 208 pages long.

But for the casual observer, it’s the Best of Breed and Best in Show portions of the program that command the most attention. That’s what you see on TV: scores of beautiful animals parading around, coiffed and confidant. How the finalists got there is a complicated process.

Once the winners of the breeds are determined, they are collected into one of seven groups. Among the animals included in those groups are:

• Sporting Group: retrievers, spaniels
• Hound Group: beagles, bassets, dachshunds
• Working Group: Akitas, Dobermans, great Danes
• Terrier Group: Scottish, border
• Non-Sporting Group: chow chows, Dalmatians, poodles
• Toy Group: Chihuahuas, Pomeranians, pugs
• Herding Group: collies, German shepherds

The magnificent seven – the winners of each group – then go paw-to-paw in the Best in Show competition. The question is: How in the name of Lassie can you compare a gigantic Great Dane that can practically look you in the eye with a toy poodle that would fit nicely in your purse?

The answer is, you can’t. The contestants aren’t being judged against each other, but against written breed standards established by their national clubs and approved by the AKC. The dog that best exemplifies these qualities – physical structure, condition, gait (that’s why they run around the ring), and temperament (no growling, please) – is declared the undefeated champion, the Best in Show.

This whole process, which is called conformation, “is basically a beauty contest,” says CMKC president Teel. And who better to decide whether beauty is in the eye of the beholder or not than an AKC-approved judge?


Although the judges this year came from both coasts and all over America, Terri Lyddon, a Columbia native, wasn’t among them. She was off judging 97 junior handlers in Louisville, Ky. That she survived the experience is testament to her fortitude and sense of humor.

Lyddon is qualified to judge 42 different breeds, including all the toys.

“You know, those fluffy little dogs,” she says with a laugh.

She joined the CMKC in 1969, and has been showing dogs since she was a child. To become an approved judge, she had to undergo the rigorous AKC application process, endure a probationary period, be evaluated, and finally receive regular status.

“When you first start out, you’re lucky to get three or four dollars a dog and maybe a nice motel room,” she says. But after establishing her circuit creds, she now receives a fee plus expenses, including airfare, hotel, transportation and miscellaneous expenses. The tab can run $1,200 for a weekend.

The job is easy if there is a star in the group.

“I even think that amateurs standing at ringside can pick the standout. But it becomes difficult when you have a class of somewhat average animals and need to sort them according to the standards,” she says.

Lose the category, blame the judge?

“The AKC tries to discourage conflicts,” Lyddon says. “Everyone wants to maintain a family-friendly environment, so unsportsmanlike conduct can be penalized and charges brought against an exhibitor, up to suspension of participation.

“Dog owners and handlers have to keep everything in perspective,” she says. “My judgment is just one person’s opinion on one day.”

So, it’s on with the show. Finally.

Like a threshing machine, the process relentlessly separates the chaff from the championship grain, seven hours a day. Some dogs are raised to new heights, while others come crashing back to mundane reality. Many of the canines seem to know they’ve won their categories; some don’t seem to care much as long as luncheon is provided.

On this March Saturday, a black cocker spaniel named Ch EXL’s Leather-‘n-Lace got the nod as Best in Show. Sunday’s winner was Ch Coventry Vanity Fair, a Pembroke Welsh corgi. Both champs beat out more than 800 other dogs to earn their titles.


If you are looking to make money, invest in gold, not golden retrievers. The sport is a labor of love and, for most owners, definitely a nonprofit hobby. The expenses are high and the financial rewards practically nil. Best in Show this year will receive Purina dog food, but no check. Other category winners are presented with baskets of Missouri products worth between $35 and $125. Nice, but who pays the gas bill from Colorado to Columbia and back?

“If you take care of your dogs as you should, you won’t get rich. I work to support my dog habit,” Rosemary Teel says with a smile. “And I think most people at the show do so also.”

By Sunday afternoon, the second show is over: The winners are celebrating, and the losers are either complaining or already on the road. The club committee agrees that things went as smoothly as a silky coat this year. Teel is grateful she didn’t have to call a bench committee to settle some nagging dispute or reprimand someone for leaving an animal unattended. The club president and show chairman are already pondering which judges to invite next year. The eventual choice requires a lot of thought; unpopular judges discourage exhibitors from turning out.

The vendors have packed up, the spectators have drifted away, and there is a feeling of anticlimax in the air. Out in the parking lot, the fleet of RVs has mostly disappeared, homeward bound. A few diehards are idly wandering about, but after two days of noise and excitement, the fairgrounds seem, well, doggone quiet.



America’s Top Dog
Normally it’s not polite to point, but when the judge singled out Ch K-Run’s Park Me in First as Best in Show, the crowd at the Westminster Kennel Club dog show went wild and gave him a standing O. Not to be outdone, the beagle in question, also called Uno, unleashed a barrage of “ah-roos”in appreciation, perhaps realizing he was the first of his breed to win the title.

On hand to cheer him on was Columbian Eddie Dziuk, one of Uno’s four owners.

“This is everybody’s ultimate dream,” he says. “Obviously, we are thrilled and humbled that we had the great good fortune to experience this.”

No stranger to high-level competition, Dziuk and partners have had two other beagles finish second at Westminster.

“We’ve knocked at the door before, we’ve just never quite gotten there,” he says. In fact, Dziuk’s sister told him she wasn’t even going to watch the finals because she was tired of watching those pouty, puffy poodles prance away with the top prize. A humble 15-inch beagle, she indicated, had no chance.

But Dziuk recognized something special in Uno.

“I know the breed. I’ve been doing this for 30 years,” says the 44-year-old CEO of the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals. “Uno has a captivating temperament and he’s never met a stranger he didn’t like. He’s extremely friendly and outgoing; new situations don’t bother him at all. He takes everything in stride.”

Thinking they had a top champion on their hands, the four-person syndicate pooled their resources and decided to hire a professional handler. Uno’s record on the circuit? Thirty-two best in shows before the extravaganza in New York City.

If Westminster is the Super Bowl of dog shows, it’s surprising that Uno didn’t win a free trip to Disney World, but the bodacious beagle made a whirlwind tour of the morning talk shows and was treated to “Uno Day” in Chicago by Illinois’ lieutenant governor. After all, the champ was born in Belleville, Ill., three years ago.

Dziuk says Uno was retired in March and is living with his handler in South Carolina.

“We all reached the decision that there was nothing left for him to accomplish,” he says.

Still, like all superstars, Uno is keeping his options open. There is talk of a White House visit and several TV shows have inquired about his availability. Macy’s has also expressed an interest in featuring him in this year’s Thanksgiving Day parade.

While the owners ponder the beagle’s celebrity schedule, Dziuk says they’ll consider anything “that sounds fun, makes sense, or as time allows. We’re all working people — it’s not like we can take a year off and run around with the dog.”

Although beagles have been among the most popular breeds in the country for 100 years, Uno’s rash of recent publicity may make some folks rush out to buy one. Dziuk hopes they won’t without doing the research necessary to see if the dog is a fit for them. Beagles need a lot of exercise and are not exactly shy about expressing their opinions and observations with their owners or even with several thousand people in Madison Square Garden.

“Owning a dog is a commitment for life and it should never be a spontaneous, knee-jerk reaction,” he says. “People need to go beyond that cute little face they saw on TV.”



Dedication For Dedication
The Columbia Missouri Kennel Club dedicated the 2008 dog show to long-time member, Barb Winans. For 25 years, Winans has been an enthusiastic owner-handler-breeder of West Highland white terriers, known as Westies.

“I fell in love with them,” she says. “They are one of the smartest terrier breeds, but they can be characters at times; they have a large amount of self-esteem.”

A former treasurer of the CMKC, Winans is also co-founder of Heartland Westie Rescue, a national organization devoted to finding abandoned or brutalized dogs and rehabilitating them. She is appalled by the way some of these animals are treated and was horrified to discover that puppy mill auctions are held every week around the country.

But not all of her experiences have been negative. Far from it.

“Dog people are a wonderful support group,” she says. “We compete during the day and all go out to dinner at night.”

Born in Moberly, Winans moved to Texas, and then returned to attend Columbia College and the University of Missouri. After a career as a teacher, she retired in 1984. To honor her, many of her teaching colleagues attended the show to help celebrate, and “my Westie friends came from all over the country to be here,” she says.

She says she thinks the show went smoothly, but as honoree, and relieved of her usual duties, she felt she was “taking a busman’s holiday.”

The applause was long and heartfelt for her lifetime of dedication to the sport of dogs.



The Science Of Dogs
Show chairman Liz Hansen knows dogs inside and out. As the owner-handler-breeder of national renowned standard schnauzers, she is not just a weekend warrior. Her whole life is about dogs.

Really.

When she’s not in the ring, Hansen works in the animal molecular genetics lab at the University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine.

“When I first started, we did a little bit of DNA work on dogs and a lot on cattle. Now it’s the other way around,” she says. “We are looking for inherited diseases and, at the same time, trying to identify positive traits to end the practice of just breeding away from trouble.”

 Using the information it has on the canine genome map, the lab tries to find DNA markers that indicate hereditary diseases and prevent them from being passed along to future generations.

Recently, she conferred with the members of the Otterhound Club, which has a terrible problem with epilepsy in these rare dogs.

“If they can’t get genetic markers – and soon – the breed won’t survive the next 30 years,” Hansen says. “A hundred pounds of dog seizing is not much fun.”

The lab also investigates the canine equivalent of Parkinson’s and other neurological diseases. “If we can map the genes in dogs, there’s a possibility that we can find clues about how to help some of these things in humans,” she says. “There’s a lot of exciting potential for both dogs and people.”

Hansen’s encyclopedic knowledge of the dog world and her access to the science of breeding makes her the perfect bridge between technicians and laymen.

“In my former career, I was a medical illustrator, trying to make things understandable to the public,” she says. “Now I use words, not visuals, to do the same thing.”

Liz Hansen knows all about dogs, right down to the molecular level.



The Club House
You’d expect that the Columbia Missouri Kennel Club would be headquartered in a gracious brick manor, surrounded by acres of lush lawns, swimming pools and tennis courts. Liveried waiters would be serving rum punches and canapés on the veranda, while inside a four-star chef would be whipping up gourmet meals for a flock of mustachioed guys in foxhunting garb tallyho-ing and pip-piping each other all night.

Sorry. It’s not that kind of club. For its monthly meetings, the members gather at the Columbia Canine Sports Center, so don’t think oiled oak paneling, sparkling silver tea sets, or musty libraries filled with leather-bound volumes of ancient lore. This is a low-key, utilitarian club that is focused totally on the sport. Its sole fundraising event is the annual dog show, which means what they make in March must last all year.

The club does not keep those funds idle. They are active in local affairs, sponsoring a scholarship at the University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine, and promoting the American Kennel Club’s Responsible Dog Ownership program.

Youth education is high on the members’ list of priorities. Each year they award a scholarship for a junior handler to attend the prestigious Westminster show in New York City.

Clubhouse? Nope. Not even a doghouse.



Rising Star
On a frigid New York day in 2006, Liz Hansen, owner-handler of a champion standard schnauzer marched resolutely toward Madison Square Garden to prepare for the annual Westminster Kennel Club dog show. Then disaster struck. She slipped on a patch of ice, hit the sidewalk and broke her left arm. This could have shattered her dreams of winning another title for her dog, but the show must go on and help was at hand in the form of Liz Holle and her mother. While Mom escorted Hansen to the emergency room, high school freshman Liz found grooming space, prepared the dog, and got everything ready for Hansen’s eventual return sporting a temporary cast.

That she was so cool in a crisis shouldn’t be surprising. Liz Holle (pronounced “holly”) has been enthusiastic about dogs since she was 8 and is one of the best young handlers in the country, according to her admiring fans at the Columbia Missouri Kennel Club.

Now a junior at Hickman High School, Liz began her career in the 4-H dog project.

“I was into gymnastics, swimming, and soccer at the time,” she says. “But it came to a point I had to make a choice. This is what I chose, and it obviously stuck. It’s a big commitment to show dogs because it becomes everything you do.”

Today, she travels almost every weekend in the company of 25 dogs and professional handlers Shelly Hamilton and Sharon Svoboda of Greenridge Farm, a Columbia kennel. She and another girl are “sort of apprentices. We feed, water, exercise, and potty the dogs.” she says. Depending on the schedule, she shows the dogs, too.

Her charges are as enthusiastic as she is.

“They get excited when I start to load the cages and they’re all like: Do I get to go? There’s a lot of grooming involved – the poodles love it. They’d sit on their tables all day if we’d let them,” she says with a laugh.

If this peripatetic lifestyle wreaks havoc on her academic and social life, Liz says she’s comfortable with it.

“I do my homework in the truck on the way to the dog shows and on the way home. My teachers have been helpful and understanding,” she says. “A lot of my school friends don’t understand the dog world, but I have friends all over the country that I can call and talk to and have a real conversation. At shows, we do a lot of fun things like shopping at the malls.”

Her advice for aspiring young dog handlers is to join the 4-H program, where she teaches showmanship.

“It’s a great place to start because you don’t have to spend a lot of money,” she says. “You can begin with mixed-breed dogs and, if the kids really like it, we can help them find purebreds to show at American Kennel Club events.”

4-H is also a good place to discover if a child has what it takes “because unlike projects with cows or pigs, dogs never go away,” she says. “They’re there when it’s snowing outside and they don’t leave to be sold at county fairs.”

Liz will spend her summer vacation in Nebraska this year, working with a breeder of Portuguese water dogs like Tino, the one she showed at Westminster in 2008.

Liz’s future plans include college next year. “I like to show dogs, but I want an education to fall back on,” she says.

If Liz Holle is any indication, the future of the dog world is in safe, confident hands.



Dog-O-Nomics
The economic impact of the dog show is a boon for Boone County, says Raymond Ruetsch, editor of Pooch News, the official Columbia Missouri Kennel Club newsletter. “The amount is about $400,000 and was obtained from an American Kennel Club survey asking exhibitors how far they traveled, how long they stayed in the area, and what they spent. The results show that the average attendee spent $320 each for food, lodging and supplies.”



Breed All About It
The American Kennel Club recognizes 169 breeds that are eligible to compete in the 20,000 events the organization sanctions each year. That doesn’t take into account variations on a theme such as standard and toy poodles, 13- and 15-inch beagles, and three flavors of dachshunds.

The most popular dog in America for 10 years running is the Labrador retriever, followed by the surging Yorkshire terrier, the German shepherd, the golden retriever, the beagle and, muscling its way into the top 10 for the first time, the bulldog.

Tailing the list are the English and American foxhounds, probably because foxes have been hounded out of existence in both countries. Somewhere in the middle is the Bouvier des Flandres (perhaps related to Jackie Kennedy or Marge Simpson), and the Schipperke, which sounds like a perky, sporty dog, but is actually in the Non-Sporting Group.

Waiting in the wings for the AKC’s full imprimatur are the azawakh, a dog from Mali that seems similar to a greyhound, but isn’t grey or even gray; the Leonberger, a German pooch that resembles Leon Berger, the guy you used to work with; and the mellifluously named Xoloitzcuintli, which looks exactly as it’s pronounced.



Overheard At The Show

“Get the bitch ready.”
A segment from the Don Imus radio show? Nope, just a handler getting ready to enter the ring. This is probably the only venue in America that the word “bitch” is not only acceptable, but necessary to distinguish female dogs from males.

“I got a doggie, too.”
A little girl wearing a sunshine yellow dress with puffy sleeves proudly holds up a gray, dingy thing that was once a stuffed animal. It has obviously been loved to the point of extinction. Mom shakes her head sadly. If she washes the doggie, it will disintegrate, and the tears won’t be worth the improved hygiene.

“I hear he’s a sucker for legs.”
More news about New York’s ex-governor? No, two owners trying to anticipate the judge’s reaction to their dog. For example, some judges stress gait, others head formation. These guys were trying to handicap their chances.

“Noooooo!”
A 2-year-old boy with red hair rips his hand from his father’s and assaults the barrier separating the audience from the Sporting Group waiting patiently in the ring. He struggles to climb the wall and hurl himself inside to play with the dogs. Children must be taught not to approach or try to pet a dog without the owner’s permission. Fortunately, Dad has an idea. He hoists the toddler to his shoulder, giving the kid a bird’s-eye view of the action.

“Clean up in ring three.”
Uh-oh. This is not a supermarket, after all.

“My son just got married.”
Two handlers chatting before the Toy Group judging begins. Unlike the tense, electric atmosphere of the Westminster, the Columbia event seems laid back and familial. Many of these aficionados know each other from other shows and keep up with their friendships and family news.

“Boy, that’s right.”
A visitor commenting on a T-shirt emblazoned with: “The more people I meet, the more I like my dog.”

“I’d use stronger language.”
A woman, whose dog had just been eliminated from breed competition, observing a vendor’s sign advertising: “Oh Fudge.”

“Sit.”
A 4-year-old girl wearing a pink down coat is putting a black Lab through his paces. He has been ordered to sit, speak, roll over, and shake hands. But her next command has flummoxed the poor dog. He cocks his head quizzically as she says sweetly, “Smile, Bruno.”


The Sport Of Princes?
Unless you own racehorses, you might be shocked at the amount of money it takes to pursue the sport of dogs.

“I used to get everyone and everything in a car. Now we need an RV,” Dianne Ruetsch says. “Believe me, packing for dogs is like packing for kids – you end up bringing along more for them. You have to take exercise pens, kennel decks, grooming tables, food and supplies, including a first aid kit.”

“We went to Iowa recently,” her husband Raymond says. ”I had to buy 75 gallons of gas to make it there and back.”

“Then there are the vet bills,” Dianne says. “I just paid one for $550 and more than $100 for medication.”

She worries that the shrinking economy and the rising cost of fuel will severely curtail attendance at future shows. Unfortunately, the 2008 Columbia exposition was down 300 to 400 exhibitors from previous years. Everything has become so expensive, she fears that dogs will become a rich man’s sport and discourage less-affluent dog owners from participating.