Clubs Offering:
While watching a dog show on television or in person, many casual viewers find themselves completely mystified about aspects of the sport. But here are answers to four basic questions to give you a better understanding of dog shows.
Most dog handlers you’ll see in the TV portion of the show are professionals. They’ve spent the year showing a “string” of dogs on behalf of the dogs’ owners. Among a pro handler’s responsibilities are the grooming, conditioning, transportation, and diet of their charges, often with the help of assistants. But some handlers you’ll see on TV are the dog’s owner and breeder. They’re technically “amateurs,” but there’s nothing amateurish about their expertise.
The dog show judges come from the ranks of breeders, amateur breeder-handlers, pro handlers, and dog club members. Many have played all these roles. Judges are AKC-approved and licensed, and the club that is sponsoring the dog show selects the judges.
“There are a lot of people who are against it, but there are a lot of people who are OK with it,” said McCoy. “Dog shows at one time were limited to purebred dogs, but the world is changing.”
“It came about because agility is a growing division of the sport,” said Bradley. “I think its a great step.”
Training a top agility dog pales in comparison to the cost of cultivating a world-class conformation dog, however. The price of a purebred puppy with the makings of a promising show dog can run in the neighborhood of $5,000, said Westminster judge Dougherty.Mixed-breed Rosie jumps through the tire jump at an AKC Agility Trial in Freehold, N.J.Source: American Kennel Club
Its a change in the dynamics of the dog show world that led to the addition of the agility event this year, said Westminster show Chairman Thomas H. Bradley III.
Dogs that are competitive for top prizes in conformation, like Westminsters coveted “best in show” title, can cost their owners up to about $800,000 per year to maintain and promote, according to 2013 Westminster judge Michael Dougherty.
Enter your mixed breed into one of the competitions. You may need to apply beforehand, but mostly you can register him just before the event.
Train your dog to specialize in one of the main events at a MBDCA show. These include competitive obedience, rally obedience, conformation, lure coursing and versatility title. If you are serious, you will need to take your dog to professional classes until you are confident you can train him on your own.
Enter your dog into an MBDCA event. You will need to fill and send out a form with the required fee before the deadline. If it is the first time you have entered your dog, you will have to enter him in one of the novice events. Only when your hybrid dog has achieved a novice certificate will the MBDCA allow you to enter your pup into a competition on a higher level.
Simon Thomas has worked as a writer and journalist since 2004. He has contributed articles to several online publications, including Smashing Magazine, an art-and-design e-zine. Thomas holds a B.A. in film and media from Winchester University.
Research the amateur dog shows in your local area. The best places to look are on the Internet or your local newspaper.
Scout’s Magnificent Mutt Mix – What’s Your Mutt?
NEW YORK — The poodles trimmed like topiaries and the Komondors who look like four-legged Rastafarians, the Afghan hounds with their shimmering shanks of Jennifer Aniston hair and pint-size Maltese that are always gamboling three steps ahead of their handlers will have some different exotic company this weekend, now that the 138-year-old Westminster Kennel Club has decided to admit mixed-breed dogs — thats right, mutts! — into the nations most celebrated and sent-up dog show.
So what if the mutts are competing against pedigree dogs in only one “performance” (or non-beauty) event: Westminsters first running of an agility course championship, which will take place Saturday at Pier 94 along the Hudson River? And who cares that it happens two days before the infinitely more famous “All Breeds” show begins to unfold 24 blocks away at Madison Square Garden for 191 eligible varieties of purebreds, culminating with the Best in Show award Tuesday?
The point is, mixed breeds are back at Westminster for the first time since they were officially disinvited over a century ago because their muddled bloodlines left no written conformity standard to judge them by.
A total of 16 mutts — many of them rescues from animal shelters — are scheduled to compete Saturday in the agility field against 209 purebred dogs.
Kitty Norwood, president of the 26-year-old Mixed Breed Dogs Club of America, admits if she had her way there would also be a beauty contest to pick a Best in Show among mutts of different sizes, and then a duel pitting the winner against the just-crowned purebred Best in Show to pick an all-comers champ each year. Winner takes all the chew toys.
But as it is, the new arrangement still sets up the delicious possibility that fancy-pants Westminster could suddenly be gripped by the same storylines that have always provided some of the greatest drama in other sports. Namely, the idea of some less pedigreed have-not toppling the haves.
Think “Miracle on Ice” in 1980. Danny and the Miracles knocking off UNLV in the NCAA Tournament. Think the wild-card New York Giants toppling undefeated New England in the Super Bowl.
Why, think what would happen if the likes of Edward Smigles, one of this years Westminster agility mutts, toppled a purebred rival whos a 10th-generation descendant of Toto or Rin Tin Tin?
Many of the mixed-breed dogs owners say their acceptance into Westminster proves that things have come a long way since the American Kennel Club, the umbrella organization that sets the judging rules that Westminster uses, allowed mutts into performance competitions in 2009 — long after some of the sports other organizations did.
In the beginning, especially, there was some tension afoot when the mixed breed and purebred fanciers met at AKC events. Some mutt owners say it sometimes felt like the Saps versus the Snobs. Or the Clampetts crashing a party thrown by the Vanderbilts. (Jethro? Wheres Granny?) Even the handler of a mixed-breed champion such as Crime — a 3-year-old with two entertainment agents who have landed him TV and movie roles opposite the likes of Tim Robbins and Lena Dunham of “Girls” — encountered some cool receptions.
“But I just figure opinions are like noses — everyone has one,” laughs Crimes owner Debbie Lazaro, an attorney from New Jersey.
“Certain people accept us now, but when we first started, people gave you looks like, Whered that dog come from? or Oh my God, what is it?” says Karen Profenna, the owner of Hailey, a Boston terrier/beagle (or “Boogle”) mix. “It was like you should just want to just crawl away, or feel like we shouldnt be there. I even got comments like, Oh, thats only a mixed-breed dog. And Id think, Well, yeah. But that mixed-breed dog just got three first places in all three runs. “
So booyah to ya! And why dont you put that rawhide bone where the sun …
Adrienne McLean, a professor at the University of Texas-Dallas who is driving the 3,000-mile-plus round trip to New York to compete with her 8-year-old dog, Jimmy, says: “Being in Westminster is a major, major big deal to me.
“When the AKC started letting mixed-breed dogs in, initially we all rolled our eyes because it was going to be separate but equal. They said we were going to have to compete in our own class, wouldnt go to the national championships, and they put a designation M after us, for mixed breed or mutts. And I have to tell you, as an American historian, the idea that youre told your dog doesnt have the merit to compete in sport that is based on speed and ability because his parents werent documented? And because he doesnt have the proper papers? I mean, you know …”
“Right!” McLean laughs. “But to their credit, within a very few months, the AKC dropped all of those restrictions. And we could compete in things like agility with purebreds.”
The AKCs consciousness-raising went further than that. AKC officials looked at melting pot of what-is-it? dogs and tried rebranding the mixed-breed category with the more genteel name “All-American” dogs instead — as if the mutts just got processed in the “fur only” line at Ellis Island and took the oath of citizenship as some band played the Star-Spangled Banner.
“People have spent a lot of years saying were elitist because we dont allowed mixed breed dogs to compete for Best in Show,” says longtime Westminster TV host David Frei. “But the reality is, the AKC rules still dont allow for it. But we love all dogs. And now, with events like the agility course, there are a lot of ways for everyone to join the fun.”
But if the populists are happily shouting “The Mutts are coming! The Mutts are coming!”, certain animal rights groups are not totally appeased.
Lindsay Rajt, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals associate director of campaigns, says, “I think Westminster has taken a small but important step toward finally acknowledging what loving and wonderful animals mutts can be. But the bottom line is Westminster and the AKC are still contributing to inbreeding of unhealthy traits in dogs and to the homeless dog crisis in the U.S. And the only way to end this crisis is to get people to stop breeding dogs and adopt dogs instead of buying them. Westminster is working directly against that goal.”
Rajt says PETA plans to protest the Westminster show as usual outside Madison Square Garden this year, this time with posters that show a little white dog with a black comb held under its nose to resemble Hitlers mustache, and words that read:
Agility course competitions such as the one Westminster is staging are the fastest-growing dog sport in country, according to the AKC. They also look great on television. The competition requires dogs to race around navigating a series of jumps, ramps, weave courses, seesaws and other challenges as they are timed. Judges also watch to make sure the dogs dont balk at certain jumps or miss required tasks.
“We often say the Best in Show people have their beauty pageant,” says McLean. “And we have the athletes. The everydogs.”
Not that the agility championship is free of its own intrigues. Theres a tempest in the mixed-breed world right now about the ethics of breeding so-called “sport” or “designer” dogs specifically for the agility competition and other performance events. (Crime is one of them. Hes an intentionally bred border collie-Staffordshire bull terrier mix.)
But also among the 16 mutts scheduled to compete Saturday is Emma, an abandoned and abused dog that owner Christy Welde rehabilitated into a champion. Alfie was a $99 clearance dog at a pet shop and probably destined for a kill shelter before Irene Palmerini bought him.
McLean gave her adorably scruffy rescue dog the name “Jimmy” because his disheveled red hair and long legs reminded her of an uncle of the same name. And Haileys handler, Profenna, a pharmacy manager from New City, N.Y., says shes taught her dog more than 120 tricks to help with her work as a certified therapy dog. Together, they make around 200 appearances a year at hospitals, nursing homes, schools and relief shelters.
Profenna says Hailey has such an active brain, shes not always able to turn that beautiful mutt mind of hers off.
“Sometimes at home shell bring me the remote control and bark and Ill say, I guess its time to watch TV,” Profenna laughs. “Or if I have someone over and Im not paying enough attention to Hailey, all of a sudden the lights will go off and on, off and on.”
Like Crime, Hailey has also started an acting career. She just filmed her first commercial, for Purina. And shes not just another pretty mutt face.