by Josh Dean
Told that the dog he fancied was Kimberly’s, the man asked about his temperament. “He’s a love,” Kimberly said. “And he’s great with kids. He herds kids. He tries to herd my son, who is seventeen.”*
Behind us another guy chimed in. “That’s a pretty dog.”
The judge must have agreed. Jack was the first dog picked out of his group, meaning he was in the top six males selected out of the larger pool of twenty-nine, including many top champions. Saltzman dismissed the dogs from the ring to make room for the bitches.
“I can go home happy now,” Kimberly said. “Top six—out of the top twenty-nine in the country! And he’s not even two!”
One of the men wanted to know what Kimberly’s plan was for Jack, and I, too, was getting a little caught up in things. Here, on the country’s biggest stage, her dog was already among the best in his breed. Kimberly was trying not to get swept away by the excitement. “My son’s going to college,” she said. “I have to have priorities. He already thinks I love the dog more. If I said, ‘You can’t go to college because I need to show Jack,’ . . . well—then he might not love Jack as much.” She smirked.
The odds are certainly better if you’re showing a bitch. Once the boys had left, only females remained to face the judge, including Beyoncé and her handler, Jamie Clute. Beyoncé was the first girl pulled, and she led the group of five that would join the six males in the final judging of the show’s biggest breed.
All around us buzz began to swell over Jack. A woman asked where he came from, then took out an envelope and wrote down the kennel name as Kim told her, “It’s Wyndstar with a y.” A man with a New York accent as thick as cream cheese said, “I love that dog.” Kimberly didn’t even try to disguise her pleasure at all the attention—not because it validated her, exactly, but because these people were affirming what she already knew to be true of Jack: He’s a very special dog.
“Did I tell you my kennel name?” she said to me quietly, and I was surprised to hear it, seeing as she had never bred a single dog. “Jackpot. Because Jack is the cornerstone. I hit a jackpot with him. And if you buy one of my dogs, you hit the jackpot, too. And I work at the casino.” She giggled. It’s good, I said, but you’re lacking two important pieces: puppies and the space to raise them.
It wasn’t hard to tell which dogs Saltzman preferred, and after watching a down-and-back and then a free stack—in which Jack froze and fixed on Heather’s hand as if he’d been doing this for years—Judge Saltzman was clearly favoring both Jack and a red tri from Louisiana, named Rowan. She reordered them for a final jog around the ring, putting Jack in front, which seemed to indicate that she was leaning toward choosing him. Kimberly was practically bouncing in her seat.
Then, when they were midway around, Saltzman reordered the dogs again, putting Rowan the red in front of Jack. Jack still looked great—confident, happy, beautiful—and he moved smoothly at the end of Heather’s lead until she stopped him one last time for a final look by the judge. Saltzman fixated on the two males—back and forth, back and forth. Beyoncé seemed to be out of the running. Later Heather would tell us that the tension was palpable.
The judge made her decision: It was Rowan, a dog who’d been exhibited and advertised for at least a year. I don’t know this for sure, but I have to imagine that when it comes time to break a difficult tie, you might tend to choose the dog you know from the advertisements. And you could hardly fault Judge Saltzman if that were the case.
Because second place always goes to the opposite sex, the Best of Opposite was given to Beyoncé, but it was clear to everyone watching that Jack was Saltzman’s second-favorite dog. Anyway, he was given the first Award of Merit, in the largest group at his first-ever Westminster, and by hesitating so long to make her choice, Judge Saltzman had told everyone watching that either of these two males could have won Best in Breed.
At ringside, Kathy Glaes, a reporter from the breed’s specialty magazine, the Australian Shepherd Journal, asked Kimberly if she could set up a time for an interview about this unknown dog who’d nearly won the breed. “He’s an up-and-comer,” said a woman who’d been eavesdropping. Jack was a total unknown—to date he had not appeared in a single ad—but people responded to him. He got a reaction. And to think that Kimberly had briefly considered not bringing him.
“You know what the lesson is?” Heather’s mom, Sue, said as she congratulated Kimberly with a hug. “Always listen to Heather.”
Handler and dog posed for their win photo and then joined us. “He was losing focus at the end,” Heather said. “I was getting upset with him. When I had to free-bait the last time”—free-baiting is when the dog must stop and stack with no help from the handler, who is not allowed to touch the dog or reset its feet—“I was nervous. I was losing him. That other dog has been campaigned.”
I pointed out that even though I still had no real idea what was going on out there, I could see that Jack had uncommon flair.
“That thing he has—he loves it—that’s the best thing you can ask for with a show dog,” Heather said. “But it’s also his weakness. The more he’s out, the better. Wildwood was huge, I think. To get those five shows under his belt—oh, my God, that was huge.”
Kimberly looked dizzy. “I came here with no expectations,” she said. And yet that’s not entirely true. Yes, she didn’t expect to win. If I’d told her Jack was going to win an Award of Merit before the forty-four Aussies assembled in the ring, she’d have laughed at me. But this is emotional business. It’s not exactly like someone subjectively judging your child in a spotlit ring surrounded by spectators, but it’s not far from that.
Because Heather believed in Jack and understood that Kimberly wasn’t rich, she seemed willing to negotiate on price, but it wasn’t just benevolence at work. Both of Heather’s campaign dogs—Rita and Tanner—were scheduled to come off the books for the summer, and she was in the market for a new dog to take to the top. That dog, she hoped, was Jack.
“I can get him to top ten,” she said. “I would say top five, but you just never know at that point. There’s so much that goes into it.”
Like those orange-jacketed attendants who direct pilots parking their planes at airport gates, show judges communicate mostly through gestures—two hands up, palms out, means stop. A sweep one way is meant to direct a down-and-back, and a twirl of the finger indicates once more around the ring. When a judge has completed an inspection, he’ll give the dog a little pat on the side or rear to send it on its way.
Kevin showed Rita to a handsome blond woman who looked like a librarian. Despite some slipups—at one point Kevin tossed a treat to Rita and it bounced off her nose and onto the ground, where another dog snatched it up—it went well, and Rita was given Best of Opposite, continuing the couple’s hot streak.
I found Kevin back at the stand, red-faced and wiping away sweat.
“Four out of six is a pretty good show,” I said, meaning that Jack, Shumba, Rita, and Trader had all been among the top dogs at the world’s best show. Any owner with realistic expectations would be thrilled with such a result.
“Not bad,” he answered, and you can understand why as a professional he might see things differently. “But no wins yet.”
Hopes of an appearance live on national TV, under the lights at night in the groups, rested on the final dog in the truck: Tanner, who stood quite happily on the grooming table while Heather finished up his primping. En route to New York, he had eaten an entire bag of Purina Carvers dog treats that Dawn had accidentally left near his crate and had slowly but surely been puking them up ever since. “Let’s hope the last one doesn’t come out in the ring,” she said.
“No accidents yet,” I said, and immediately realized that everyone was looking at me as if I’d just poked Tanner in the eye.
“You can’t say that!” Dawn said, kind of laughing, but in a way that made it clear she wasn’t actually amused. “It’s like when the announcer says, ‘He shoots ninety-five percent from the line. H
e never misses.’” She paused a beat. “He always misses.”
When judging began, both Heather and Kevin were forced into duty. Heather with Tanner, of course. Kevin with Roxy, a young female bred by Dawn and one who was to become a featured dog in the coming months. She was at the Garden mostly for practice and was still quite green, something that became very apparent when, mere moments into the judging, she fulfilled prophecy and took a giant dump that neither the judge nor the ring attendants seemed to notice. The crowd, however, was fully aware, and as the handlers maneuvered around the steaming pile, a buzz grew.
“Do you get points off for that?” a man sitting nearby asked. The buzz spread to the desk where the ring steward sits, overseeing the schedule and the judge’s book, and frantic pointing ensued as one handler after another just barely dodged the crap. Finally, a good four or five minutes later, the cleaning crew arrived and the two-man team—one with dustpan and broom, the other with a mop—took care of business, much to the delight of the crowd, which erupted in a huge cheer.
“It’s like the Zamboni guy,” said one young woman. To which her friend answered curtly, “Well, everybody poops.”
Westminster is so different from the other shows that it can be a bit of an equalizer. It takes certain dogs way outside their comfort zones. They spend their day cooped up in stuffed aisles, show in front of a crowd of thousands, and then exit the building into a loud and intimidating city with virtually no grass.
Considering the lack of open space, David Frei told me it’s “kind of amazing that we don’t have more accidents in the ring than we do. And when we do, everyone in our world understands that’s it’s no big deal.”
Unless it happens on national TV. He said that a few years back, in the Sporting Group, a dog “just stopped dead center of the ring with camera on him and took a dump.” Frei, working the broadcast, said that the camera didn’t linger for too long but that there’s not much you can do to distract the thousands in the audience who are naturally going to fixate. “Roger [Caras, the show’s announcer], on the house PA, said, ‘Well, it is a dog show,’ and everybody cheered and went on with the show.”
Frei can’t remember how that particular dog finished, but he distinctly recalls that after she was done, “she went flying around the ring like a different dog. She’s like, ‘Okay, I feel great. Let’s go.’” No judge is going to punish the act, because they’ve all been owners and handlers themselves, “and it’s happened to them,” Frei said. “It’s happened to me. Once the judge moved around to the back of my dog and was feeling down the haunches when my dog scooched up and took a dump, almost right in his hands.”
Dawn probably has many of these stories herself, as Kevin and Heather surely do. Tanner, meanwhile, didn’t even seem to notice Roxy’s faux pas. He was cool and collected and trotted around the ring as if he were pulling a cart to market.
Heather’s mom was a helpful cheerleader and led a boisterous rooting section that was buoyed by circumstance when the golden retrievers—quite possibly the most beloved breed of all—entered the ring next door. At that point the judge had set the dogs in the order that appeared to be her favorites, with Tanner in the lead, followed by a bitch named Dallas who was one of his main rivals. I looked over and saw Dawn leaning forward, practically chewing on her hands. She reached out to touch her son, Andrew, and then, just as the dogs were trotting around, the judge reset them and moved the bitch to the front. She pointed. “Best of breed!” Then, to Tanner, “Best of Opposite.”
I could read Heather’s lips as she looked up at Dawn. She said, quite clearly, “Shit.”
Though no handler likes to have defeat snatched from the jaws of victory at the very last minute, for any other dog in Heather and Kevin’s menagerie this would have been a victory. Tanner, however, was the country’s top Berner. This was his ring to win.
Dawn looked deflated and walked down to the floor to greet her dog. “Tanner Banner!” she said, some light returning to her face. “What did you do?” She gave the big bear a hug.
“It’s still Best of Opposite at the Garden,” Heather said, trying to convince herself, quite unconvincingly, that this was okay.
“If this is the worst thing to happen . . .” Dawn said. “I mean, I hate to be mad. . . .” Neither statement was finished.
“She put him first,” Heather said. “She loved him. I could tell. He moved well, he free-stacked well.”
“She put him first, and I grabbed my son’s hand and said, ‘We’re gonna do this!’” Dawn said. “And then she put the bitch first.” She stomped a foot. “I hate this show.”
By this time Tanner’s co-owner, Georgeann, had come by to commiserate. “The judge did the same thing with the Great Danes,” she said. “She likes the bitches. And that’s a showy bitch.”
Now Dawn was no longer pretending to be happy with her second place. “I’m immensely disappointed. Immensely,” she said. “I’m a terrible loser.” She nodded at Heather. “She’s devastated.”
Heather rejoined the circle, removing her sparkly jacket. “She put me in front, and I’m thinking, ‘I need to go back to the hotel! I need a new outfit! Maybe I’ll get a new outfit!’” She shook her head. “Never do that!”
“That’s the thing with dog shows,” Dawn said. “There’s no point in getting your hopes up.” A friend asked Dawn about her Best of Opposite ribbon—if she was really going to keep this one, implying that she typically does not. She shook her head.
Do you really throw them away? I asked her.
“Yes. I told you I’m a terrible loser.” She laughed one of her hearty Dawn laughs. “I need a drink.”
CHAPTER NINE
How the Hell Does a Wolf
Become a Pekingese?
A Brief History of Purebreds
* * *
The domestication of the dog from its wolf ancestors is perhaps the most complex genetic experiment in history, and certainly the most extensive.
—ELAINE OSTRANDER AND HEIDI PARKER, Journal of the Public Library of Science: Genetics
* * *
It’s not that hard to see where an Australian shepherd comes from. The dogs are low-slung and agile, with fluffy, multicolored coats, and they look, by and large, like something that evolved from a wolf. If you encountered one in its more natural environment (or what is supposed to be its natural environment, the one the breed was meant to inhabit), on sheep ranches in the western United States, you’d find some more ratty and smelly specimens, and you might mistake them for border collies, but the two breeds, while similar, have very different ways of going about their jobs.
A border collie employs a technique known as “strong eye” to stare down a flock’s leaders and force them to comply using intimidation. Aussies are more “loose-eyed”; they don’t so much intimidate as work low and use their presence as a deterrent. They can and will stare down a sheep when necessary but prefer not to. They’ll also bite a sheep or a cow on the nose if the larger animal is being especially uncooperative, which is a breed hallmark. This requires great agility, since a cow bitten on the nose can get a little angry.
* * *
BORDER COLLIE
On a more personal, companionate level, you might say border collies don’t have an off switch while Aussies can quite easily clock in and out of work. As one lady at a dog show explained to me, “Aussies ask; borders do.” The former love tasks and will eagerly complete them but is also happy to lie around the house for much of the day. The latter are so obsessed with jobs that if you don’t provide them, the dogs will just create their own. So if you if should come home and find all your shoes herded into a hole dug in the plush carpet, it’s your own fault for leaving.
Herding is a fascinating skill that is impressive to behold in person. The AKC runs a series of herding contests in which Aussies and other dogs typically herd geese or ducks, and they’re worth checking out, especially if you like nervous waterfowl. The act of herding is pretty awesome to think about—it is predato
ry behavior modified over time to omit the killing, and it’s a remarkable adaptation when you consider that these animals have been bred to disregard what is surely an overpowering natural instinct to kill and eat the animals entrusted to their care.*
Herding behavior, then, provides a pretty easy link to the Aussie’s lupine heritage; and when you combine that with the dog’s physical appearance, you can certainly see where the breed comes from. (With some of the wilder and more erratic coat patterns to be found, and with the long and snipey faces that show up in some litters, Aussies can sometimes look downright wolfish, except for the coat, which is fluffier, and the ears, which droop instead of prick up.)
Ultimately, though, all dogs descend from the same source, and it’s hard to walk around the floor at a dog show looking at poodles and Pomeranians and think, “Okay, that used to be a wolf.” More likely you’re thinking, “There is no fucking way that used to be a wolf.”
But it was. All dogs come from a single ancestor: the wolf, or Canis lupus (as opposed to Canis familiaris, the dog). Which wolf exactly has historically been subject to debate. These days most scientists agree that all dogs come from the gray wolf, a wide-ranging species that you know as the kind we have in the United States—in Yellowstone Park as well as Michigan, Minnesota, Washington, Wisconsin, and especially Alaska, where they are so numerous that they are hunted freely from helicopters by vice presidential candidates.
We owe the specificity of this knowledge to a project led by the UCLA geneticist Dr. Robert Wayne, who used mitochondrial DNA to pinpoint the dog’s origins. Wayne collected and studied blood and tissue samples from sixty-seven different dog breeds, as well as from wolves around the world and other canines such as coyotes and jackals. What he found was pretty surprising—whereas the mitochondrial DNA of wolves and coyotes differed by 6 percent, samples from wolves and dogs differed by just 1 percent. That means a Pomeranian is closer to a wolf than a wolf is to a coyote, and it’s kind of mind-blowing if you’ve ever seen a coyote, an animal that many people mistake for a wolf. It sure as hell looks more like a wolf than a Pomeranian does. So close are dog and wolf, in fact, that a Pomeranian is more similar, genetically, to a wolf than a white human is to a black or an Asian human.
