Dog Show 101: What’s what at the Westminster Kennel Club
NEW YORK — To the casual viewer, participating in the Westminster Kennel Club dog show seems pretty simple: buy a dog. Take care of it. Say it. Pipe it around a ring.
But there’s a lot more involved in reaching the pinnacle of American canine events, now in its 148th year. It’s been a year full of challenges for the kennel club: the show’s chairman died last fall and in March a scheduled judge was charged with possessing child sexual abuse material.
Here are the ins and outs of Westminster, which kicks off Saturday with an agility match at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York:
More than 2,500 dogs from 200 different breeds and varieties, which are subsets of breeds, have signed up to try to present the best in show trophy Tuesday night.
The lineup hails from every U.S. state and country, from Chile to Thailand, and includes well-known breeds like French bulldogs and Labrador retrievers, rarities like Azawakhs and Norwegian lundehunds, and a newcomer, the Lancashire heeler. Chihuahuas are the best represented breed this year, with 49 entries.
Two of last year’s seven semi-finalists are expected back: Trouble, an American Staffordshire terrier, and Monty, a giant schnauzer, who is currently the country’s top-ranked dog in The Canine Chronicle magazine’s statistics.
Also entered are Comet, a Shih Tzu who won the big American Kennel Club National Championship show in December, and Stache, a Sealyham terrier who won the National Dog Show televised on Thanksgiving.
Then there’s Zaida, an Afghan hound who just came off a win at last month’s World Dog Show in Croatia. Other top winning competitors include a German Shepherd named Mercedes and an otter dog named Melody.
A few hundred more dogs are involved in Westminster’s agility and obedience competitions on Saturday, including some mixed-breed dogs.
All dogs are champions, meaning they have achieved a certain number of points in the sport’s complicated system.
The process of becoming a show dog begins when breeders determine which puppies are physically and temperamentally suited for what is known as “conformation” competition.
Some owners show their own dogs. Other dogs have professional handlers who travel the country to compete most weekends. They can gather information about rivals’ schedules and reflect on judges’ past choices. Some owners even place full-page advertisements in dog publications to greet and promote their animals.
Conformation dogs compete first against others of their breed, which can sometimes include dozens of others, sometimes few or even none. The winner of each breed advances to a semi-final where they are judged against others in a group of dozens of breeds. In the final round, the seven group winners compete for the best in show.
Judges decide which dog best fits the ideal, or ‘standard’, for its breed. For example, a sheepdog needs proportions that allow for sharp turns, while some dogs need thick paw pads for rough terrain.
Judges conduct practical research and watch the dogs in motion. Awards can be very subtle. Show people often say that victory could go to ‘the dog of the day’, by which he means the performance of a lifetime.
“Westminster has all the great dogs in the same place for one of the few times this year,” said dog expert David Frei, who hosted the Westminster broadcast for decades. “Everyone wants to be there, and you will too. must compete against your biggest competition.”
Bragging rights and trophies are on the line. There are no cash prizes, although the agility and obedience winners may each make a $5,000 Westminster donation to a training club or to the American Kennel Club Humane Fund.
Wire Fox Terriers have walked away with the top prize 15 times, most recently in 2019. Poodles of various sizes have won 10 times.
Many breeds have yet to triumph, including favorites like the Labrador retriever. But last year a petit basset griffon Vendéen became best in show for the first time, as did a bloodhound in 2022.
All winners of the recently added agility and obedience competitions are also purebred. But every year there is a special agility prize for the top mix, called in show language an ‘all American dog’.
Westminster has long faced protests from animal rights activists who see the competition as a deplorable beauty pageant for dogs, fueling the faddish purchase of puppies and reckless breeding. The club routinely counters that it celebrates all dogs, while emphasizing the “conservation” of breeds with certain traits.
But this year’s event comes as the American dog show world faces an unexpected and painful reckoning.
Dr. Adam Stafford King, a veterinarian and Havanese breeder from a Chicago suburb who was scheduled to judge some toy breeds in Westminster, was arrested in March on federal charges of distributing photos and videos of child sexual abuse to an online contact. He has pleaded not guilty and is being held without bail.
His attorney, Jonathan Bedi, did not respond to an inquiry from The Associated Press but told Chicago media in April that King had been wrongly accused.
Shortly after King’s arrest, the American Kennel Club, which is essentially the governing body of Westminster and thousands of other American dog competitions, revoked his jury privileges and his appointment to Westminster was removed.
Although King’s alleged crimes did not take place at dog shows, the case helped bring to light discussions that had quietly percolated for years about whether the AKC has done enough to protect children who compete and apprentice as handlers. A Business Insider investigation in April found that four show professionals have been convicted of crimes against children since 2008, some of them during dog events.
The AKC began requiring its field representatives and registered handlers to complete an abuse prevention program by 2021. The club recently switched to a different program and expanded the requirement last month to include judges, chaperones and some others, covering about 20,000 people, spokesperson Brandi Hunter Munden said. said.
On Thursday, the club approved a policy that could make it easier to cut ties with people, especially when it comes to holding outdoor dog shows. The policy calls for discipline, which can include life ban, for anyone convicted of a crime or guilty of sexual offences, harassment or conduct that endangers the welfare of another or undermines the club, among other misdeeds.
“Our goal is not just to protect the youth in our sport, it is to protect every individual,” she said. “We want this sport to be safe, inclusive and family-friendly.”