by Josh Dean
5. Pekingese, pointer, miniature poodle, 3
XI. MOST WESTMINSTER BEST IN SHOW WINS, BY GROUP
* * *
1. Terrier, 45 wins
2. Sporting, 19
3. Working, 15
4. Non-Sporting, 10
5. Toy, 9
6. Hound, 5
7. Herding, 1
XII. A CURATED SELECTION OF T–SHIRT SLOGANS OBSERVED AT DOG SHOWS
* * *
Crazy Dog Lady
Woof Is My Co-pilot
Money Can Buy a Dog, But Not the Wag of Its Tail
I Kiss My Dog on the Mouth
Who’s Your Doggie?
My Indian Name Is Walks with Poop
You Had Me at Woof
Bitches Love Me
I Like Big Mutts
Your Dog Doesn’t Know Sit
Run Fast, Bark Loud
Dog Hair. The Other Condiment.
My Kids Have 4 Feet
My Dog Isn’t Spoiled. I’m Just Well Trained.
The More People I Meet, the More I Like My Dog
I Love Dogs. It’s Humans that Annoy Me.
Husband and Poodle Missing. Reward for Poodle.
Checking Pee Mail
(drawing of dog sniffing tree)
It’s All Fun And Games Until Someone Ends Up In A Cone
(drawing of dog with cone on head)
Holy Shih-Tzu
Pugs, Not Drugs
I Post Pictures of My Wiener on the Internet
(photo of dachshund)
I Trip Over My Wiener
(drawing of dachshund silhouette)
PICTURE SECTION
Jack wasn’t always a beautiful exemplar of his breed. For a few weeks between six and nine months of age, he entered an awkward teen phase during which Kimberly worried he might not have a future as a show dog after all. Photograph by Kimberly Smith
Any show dog has at least a few humans behind him. Here, two of Jack’s primary supporters—his owner, Kimberly Smith, and his breeder, Kerry Kirtley—work with him at a show in California.
Before she was in thrall to Jack, Kimberly adored a very different pet—Eric, the quarter horse she owned and competed with for three years.
Jack—pictured here with his handler, Heather Bremmer—broke out at the 2010 Westminster Kennel Club show. He won First Award of Merit out of a field of more than fifty of the world’s best Aussies. Photograph by Infocusbymiguel.com
Promotional ads for show dogs are a critical factor in a larger campaign, and serve the same purpose as those advertisements movie studios place for Academy Award prospects.
Rita, one of the top Chesapeake Bay retrievers in America, shares some of the spotlight with her friends Jack, Tanner, and Nacho.
Jack’s first-ever ad, which appeared in The Canine Chronicle a month after his breakthrough appearance at the 2010 Westminster show.
The nearly unbeatable Beyoncé, America’s number one Australian shepherd, with her handler, Jamie Clute.
The famous show dog pose—known as “the stack”—isn’t natural, and many dogs have trouble learning it. This led to the invention of Happy Legs, a tool that teaches dogs the position.
The parking lot outside a dog show is a temporary city of RVs housing handlers, owners, and dogs. Here, Kerry Kirtley works with Jack during the 2010 ASCA national in Waco, Texas.
Roommates—and first-time parents—Jack and Summer.
The products of Jack’s first litter, with Summer, were adorable and spunky—none more so than the sole blue merle, the one Kimberly named Little Jack. Photograph by Kimberly Smith
Heather’s husband and handling partner, Kevin Bednar, with Nacho the bullmastiff at the 2010 Eukanuba AKC National Championships.
Jack’s friend Rita (aka GCH Cabin Ridge’s Mega Margarita), who for a time was the country’s top Chesapeake Bay retriever bitch. Photograph by Heather Bremmer
Dominator of the herding group: Roy (aka GCH Tolkien Raintree Mister Baggins), a bearded collie-slash-Gandalf-look-alike.
Heather’s top dog, Tanner the Bernese mountain dog (aka GCH Blumoon Tanzenite V Blackrock).
At the end of the day, he’s just a dog—and a very athletic one at that. (Also pictured: Jack’s favorite toy, the blue Frisbee.) Photograph by Kimberly Smith
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JOSH DEAN is a former deputy editor of Men’s Journal as well as a contributor, and was one of the founding editors of PLAY, the New York Times sports magazine. His work has appeared in Rolling Stone, Outside, GQ, Popular Science, Fast Company, Inc., Travel + Leisure, and many others. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, son, and imaginary pet dog.
www.joshdean.com.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.
CREDITS
Cover design by Milan Bozic
Cover photograph © by Kate Lacey
Illustrations by Alexis Seabrook
Frontispiece photograph by Kerry Kirtley
Title-page photograph by Kate Lacey
Unless otherwise noted, photographs in the photo section courtesy of the author.
COPYRIGHT
SHOW DOG. Copyright © 2012 by Josh Dean. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
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EPub Edition © FEBRUARY 2012 ISBN 9780062098924
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*Actually, she’s a bitch.
*That was the total in 2010; three more joined in 2011, with another three to come in 2012.
*It’s a fairly widely told story, and likely (unfortunately) apocryphal, but I saw it in Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson’s Dogs Never Lie About Love.
*Which I guess is a redundant way of saying “a human.”
*Indicated, to my great amusement, by signs that read BITCHES IN HEAT ONLY.
*“Ch” is an abbreviation for “Champion.”
*That’s dog lingo for the mane.
*In 2009, Scarlett won twenty-one Best in Show titles, defeating more than 34,400 dogs in the process. She has four different, unrelated owners.
*Ironically named? You decide.
*Colorful but unverifiable biographical detail about Mrs. Happy Legs: “I believe [people] are recycled. Susan might be a new entity, but my energy has been around for millennia. Certainly in a past life I had to have been a horse-livestock person. My mother was scared of anything. She didn’t like animals.”
*Re
d genes that could result in red tris and red merles, each of which is less common than the black/blue version.
*Dogs that are not finished champions, competing in the classes in search of points.
*Canine gestation is remarkably dependable; it is nearly always sixty-two or sixty-three days—variations are only a day or two in one direction or the other—and considering that wolves in the wild tend to breed in February and March (at least in the Northern Hemisphere), all wolves conceived and born in a particular year will be almost exactly the same age. May is a big birthday month for wolves.
*But never more than fifteen adult dogs, the maximum a kennel is allowed to have unless it is certified as “commercial.” Wyndstar is what you call a “hobby kennel”—meaning that Kerry can legally have up to fifteen dogs on the premises (puppies under four months don’t count). To have a professional kennel, which allows for up to a hundred dogs, a breeder needs to have a minimum of five acres. “But I’d never do that,” she says. “I feel sorry for these guys already.”
*The reason it is “Wynd” and not “Wind” involves a business and branding dispute too convoluted to explain.
*The correct but oft-mistaken plural, by the way. Like “attorneys general.”
*Pronounced “Aussie cat.”
*It’s probably more irritating than she realizes. Dogs are vastly more sensitive to high-pitched noises than we are. To reach the level where they hear the sound of a piano, you’d need to add forty-eight extra notes to the right side, says researcher Stanley Coren. This high-frequency hearing goes back to wolves—it enabled them to find mice, voles, and rats, which emit high-pitched squeaks and rustling sounds.
*At least at the time of writing—this changes annually based on the total number of AKC registrations for a particular breed.
*Especially in the most popular breeds, like golden retrievers or Labs, which require huge entries to make a major.
*An Aussies-only group that does not affiliate with the AKC and is less prestigious in the larger dog-show world. Many Aussie owners, however, choose to participate only in ASCA. This split will be explained further a bit later in the book.
*Because regulations require one, she even installed a fenced pen outdoors, even though she almost never keeps dogs on the premises. For the rare occasions she does, they have large indoor kennels and a fenced yard. Three years after the pen’s installation, she’d yet to use it once.
*Nonbinding, as it turns out.
*Meaning an unfinished dog who could end up winning nothing.
*A variety is a subset of a breed based on one of three factors: coat, color, or size. The varieties compete separately in the group. There are three breeds subdivided by color—cocker spaniels, bull terriers, and English toy spaniels. Three breeds are divided by coat: dachshunds (longhaired, smooth, wirehaired), Chihuahuas (smooth or long coat), and collies (rough—which means longhaired—and smooth). And three are split up according to size variation: beagles, Manchester terriers, and of course the poodle, which comes in small, medium, and large (pardon me: “standard,” “miniature,” and “toy”).
*This is not always the case with dog handlers, believe me.
*The book Dog Show Judging: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly says that “buying comfortable, sturdy, and attractive shoes designed for both walking and standing (judges do a lot of both!) can be more difficult than finding the right dog!” but then goes on to list a number of brands recommended by judges, including Clarks, Dansko, Easy Spirit, Arcopedia, Rockport, and Cole Haan Nike Air. It also recommends orthotics and insoles, including a brand called Happy Feet!
*One place you can always count on: Super 8, the official partner motel of the AKC (as well as of the Cat Fanciers Association, so cats are also welcome).
*Eating themselves to death is one hitch in dogs’ evolution that has yet to select itself out. A common killer of all pet dogs is antifreeze, which is very toxic but also brightly colored and sweet and which dogs love to lick off of garage floors.
*An annual event in which dogs from only a single breed gather to compete.
*Hastings has some other homespun handler tricks: To keep flies out of your kennels, plant marigolds. Flies will not fly over or around the scent. “One of the easiest ways to improve coat condition is to use a humidifier in whatever room your dogs spend the most time.” If you have a male that is ultrasensitive to bitches in season, put vanilla extract (which is long-lasting and nonirritating) on his nose and whiskers. Coconut macaroons can help to eliminate stress-induced diarrhea. And if your dog is eating too fast, slow him down by adding a billiard ball to his food dish. “It’s too heavy and slick to pick up, so they have to keep moving it around to get to the food.”
*And to the late Baptist minister and dog-show judge Dr. Braxton B. Sawyer for uncovering the very rare source materials that revealed this story.
*Excepting Irish and Gordon, one presumes.
*A “bench” or “benched” show being a then-common type of show in which dogs were on display, in cages on benches, for the entirety of the show.
*J. P. Morgan loved dogs—and once offered thirty-two thousand pounds for a top-winning Pekingese owned by the Englishwoman Clarice Ashton Cross, who politely turned him down.
*In England the Prince of Wales, who became Edward VII, and his wife, Alexandra, were patrons of the Kennel Club—and showed borzois, gifts of the Czar Nicholas II of Russia.
*An all-purpose sheep, cattle, and guard dog. The name comes from the Norwegian word bu, meaning “mountain hut,” and skeletons that appear to belong to buhunds have been found in Viking graves dating to A.D. 900. A newly recognized breed in the United States, appearing at Westminster for the first time in 2010, the buhund has been recognized at Norwegian shows since 1939; the first buhund ever registered, by the way, was named Flink.
*The number, because I know you’re curious, is 14 inches, shattering the old record of 13.75.
*The alpha dog of this pack is Bill Cosby, who’s been participating in shows for years and whose Dandie Dinmont terrier—a low-slung breed that looks like a little schnauzer wearing a curly white toupee—named Harry, entered the 2007 Westminster show as the number-one-ranked dog in America. Harry won the Terrier Group but lost to a springer spaniel named Diamond Jim for Best in Show.
*Speaking of things that come in threes, I would be remiss if I did not mention the table hawking Sniff-brand pants for bitches in heat. The three varieties are “panties,” “thongs,” and “cummerbunds.”
*A perhaps apocryphal but totally believable story bandied about the Aussie community is that the dogs were also used as baby-sitters on farms, looking after kids during short stints when both parents might be required to complete certain jobs.
*It’s worth noting that this modification of behavior is pretty unique to the herding breeds; you would get very different results if you tried to herd using some type of terrier—say, a rat terrier, a rather cute variant with an ugly name that’s bred to hunt and kill vermin with great efficiency. There are many tales of terriers killing hundreds of rats in contests regularly held at English pubs.
*Canine remains have been discovered in burial sites dating back that far, including in one grave that contained a human buried with a puppy cradled in its arms—or at least that’s how it appeared when the skeletons were found.
*There is a model for what this might have looked like; it’s the relationship between aborigines and dingoes in Australia, first observed by the Norwegian explorer Carl Lumholtz in the late nineteenth century. Lumholtz observed that the aborigines treated these animals “with greater care than they bestow on their own children. The dingo is an important member of the family; it sleeps in the huts and gets plenty to eat, not only of meat but also of fruit. He caresses it like a child, eats the fleas off it, and then kisses it on the snout. When hunting, sometimes it refuses to go any further and its owner has then to carry it on his shoulders, a luxury of which it is very fond.” Here, I guess, is a primitive version of th
e modern-day dog that rides in a stroller, a not-uncommon sight around New York City.
*In the case of these last two, the changes reflect the dog’s devolution from the wolf—both pricked ears and upright tails are critical in wolf-to-wolf communication, but not so much in dog-to-human.
*Neoteny—nature’s trick for getting adults to care for the helpless newborns. I’m not sure how to reconcile this very logical-seeming theory with birds, though, which in most cases are born far uglier than they’ll be as adults. They look like dinosaurs until they fill out and grow feathers. Picture in your head a beautiful scarlet-and-yellow macaw or an African gray parrot. Now Google a chick of that species. Yikes, right? If human infants were similarly freakish, we’d live in a world of single mothers.
*And the Middle Ages were a boom time for hunting dogs, because hunting was the best way to procure dinner—and distinct hounds bred for specific game appeared: deerhounds, wolfhounds, otterhounds, and so on.
