all about top dogs: Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show
For One Dog, Winning Was a Lonely Feeling
Mary Altaffer/Associated Press
Harry was the only Dandie Dinmont terrier to be judged Monday. Last year, he won best-of-show 56 times.
By RICHARD SANDOMIR
Published: February 13, 2007
It was 10 minutes before 2 yesterday afternoon when Harry, a Dandie Dinmont terrier, took his place on the edge of breed judging Ring 2 at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. He seemed uninterested in the dozen Staffordshire bull terriers still in the ring, and not much more affected by the occasional brushing he was receiving from his handler, Bill McFadden.
Harry, or Ch. Hobergays Fineus Fogg, lounged alone in the pooch equivalent of the on-deck circle. Not a single Dandie would challenge him at Madison Square Garden. Every other breed has at least a few rivals. Forty-three Cavalier King Charles Spaniels squared off in Ring 3 a few hours before. But there was just a single Dandie who, by the scorecard published by the weekly periodical Dog News, was dandy in extremis. Harry, a 6-year-old New Zealander who is heading for retirement, had scored the most points in the country in 2006.
Betty-Anne Stenmark, a breeder who would judge Harry and seven other terrier breeds, stood a few feet from Harry and his handler. She imported his semen when he was just a puppy, before he had ever raised a paw to celebrate his first best-in-show victory.
“It’s well known that I’m one of his biggest fans,” she said of a dog whose co-owner is Bill Cosby, who in his educational and canine pursuits goes by the name William H. Cosby.
Stenmark was not expecting a judging challenge with Harry.
“It’s a no-brainer,” she said with a smile. “This isn’t judging. Judging is comparing.”
Harry would have to howl like a coyote, gnaw freshly laundered Knicks uniforms and curse the memory of Muzz Patrick to lose.
At 2:10, Harry entered the ring on his solo mission. He is small, but not a toy, with a dome of pouffy white hair forming a helmet on his head; he has a silvery-gray coat and dark hazel eyes that look like giant buttons because of the way his Andy Rooney eyebrows frame them. His tail, which tapers to a point, wagged east to west like a hirsute metronome, except when he sleeps.
McFadden walked him around the ring. Stenmark beckoned to lift Harry onto the judging table. She felt all around him, checking to see how he conformed to the Dandie standard that she said she had a hand in rewriting.
McFadden brushed him a few times. He put Harry down on the carpet and walked him around the ring. The crowd applauded.
Harry won swiftly in three minutes. A shutout.
McFadden, who brought 16 other dogs to Westminster, said Harry usually showed alone in his breed. “It’s kind of a luxurious feeling,” he said. “A lot of times, winning the breed is the hardest thing to do.”
Donald Booxbaum, who judged 115 big dogs yesterday morning (with no breed roster smaller than five Neapolitan mastiffs), said that a ring with many dogs (like the 21 Great Danes) “is more of a challenge and it’s more time consuming, but otherwise it makes no difference.” Big dogs, unlike Dandies, “are easier to judge because their faults stand out more clearly.”
There are several reasons why Harry was on his own. Dandies are not widely owned or shown. The owners of other champion Dandies might have avoided challenging Harry, who won 56 best-in-shows in 2006; Harry himself could not choose to avoid top rivals, the way the boxer Roy Jones Jr. often did. And Stenmark’s affection for Harry may have kept other Dandies at home.
“The top five in each breed are invited, so they can’t say they didn’t get the invitation,” said David Frei, the Westminster club’s spokesman and the analyst for the USA Network broadcast of the two-day show. “But sometimes they see the handwriting on the wall.”
Harry was to face 27 other competitors in the terrier group last night.
Although Stenmark did not have much of a challenge in judging Harry, she was still required to do what all other judges do: compare a dog to the ideal set by the American Kennel Club for its head, height, weight, musculature, coat, body, coat, color, gait and temperament
“For each breed, you have the mental image of the perfect dog for the breed,” said Jeffrey G. Pepper, who is scheduled to judge the Golden Retrievers, Wirehaired Pointing Griffons and Weimaraners today.
Good judges weigh the standard objectively — no dog is perfect — then subjectively interpret it, he added. “Every once in a while, a truly outstanding dog comes closest to the standard, and has the added charisma and showmanship that just attracts the eye,” he said.
Judges analyze dogs as they walk around the rings, but up close, they touch body parts to better determine how close to the standard they are. The hairier the dog, like the Old English Sheepdog, the more rooting around is needed. The dogs rarely seem to mind the looking and the prodding.
Terriers have won best in show at Westminster 44 times, more than twice as many as the next group, Non-sporting, which has 17 wins.
“Terriers have the sort of presence that says, ‘I’m here!’ ” Pepper said. But Golden Retrievers, which have never won at Westminster, evoke a less-urgent message. “They say, ‘Hi, how are you, would you pet me?’ ” |
