The Dog Show

Very few people realize just what a large dog show is like. Perhaps they have seen a local pet show or a small show in the neighborhood, but few have any conception of a really big show. Let me tell you something about it. Let us use for our first example the largest outdoor show in the United States: the Morris and Essex Kennel Club show in Madison, New Jersey, usually held the last weekend in May at Giralda, the beautiful estate of Mrs. Geraldine R. Dodge. These lovely grounds are not used for any other event except this one dog show one day each year.

On the grounds there is a permanent first-aid building staffed for the day with nurses, a permanent press reporters' building, and two large permanent storage buildings to hold equipment during the year. Permanent ladies' rooms and men's rooms are freshly painted each year, and even telephones are brought into the grounds for the big day. The parking lots will accommodate 10,000 cars. There are 16 drinking-water fountains all piped underground. The great event is held on a polo field, and the lawn there is manicured to within an inch of its life. Caterers are on the grounds with hot lunches as well as sandwiches and soft drinks. Flags fly from the tops of tents and buildings, and little pennants in the club colors of purple and orange run up and down the tent ropes. Electric lights are strung under the tents for the people and dogs who arrive the night before the show, and a dog-food company supplies food for the dogs.

One hundred very polite policemen are hired for the day to act as guards and to help direct traffic on the grounds as well as through the town of Madison. Incidentally, there are so many cars driving into the show that even five entrances into the grounds are not adequate to keep traffic moving completely smoothly. If you are an exhibitor, you are notified in advance which one of the entrances will be closest to where your dog will be shown and where his bench will be located. I will explain all the terms I have used later, such as bench, exhibitor, et cetera, but right now I am trying to give you a mental picture of this one show.

The dog-show catalogue of approximately 375 pages, with a cover in club colors, is sold at each of the entrances as well as on the show field. Each of the four exercise pens is approximately 3,700 square feet and each has electric lights strung for night use. These pens circle groups of trees so that if it is a hot day, there is shade for the dogs. In the exact center of the grounds there is a permanent building for the show superintendent and the show secretary from where they direct the many activities. There are 100 young men hired for the day to act as runners and messengers. There are 42 large show rings roped off and all 42 will be used at one time, each with its judge, stewards (who help the judge), runners (who help locate the dogs), and the many exhibitors and spectators interested in each breed. Each ring will have an umbrella under which the judge will sit to get relief from the sun while waiting for the classes to start. On his table will be a carafe of water in case he gets thirsty, and there will also be many sterling-silver trophies as well as crisp new one-, five-, and ten-dollar bills to be used as prize money. There will also be lots of satin ribbons to be given the lucky winners in the sought-after two colors of purple and gold, red and white, purple and white, blue and white, as well as the single colored ribbons of blue, red, yellow, and white. Around each ring is a row of chairs for the spectators and for the exhibitors when they are not in the ring.

I have given you an idea of what there is on the polo field at the start of the day. Should it be a rainy day, this whole setup can be moved under tents. There are enough tents available to have all the 42 judging rings under cover at a moment's notice. In addition to the judging tents there are the benching tents. This show is an unbenched show, which term I shall explain in detail later, but for our purposes now I will say only that the dogs at this show need not be placed in stalls. In spite of the fact that the dogs need not be benched, there is available for each dog entered in this show a stall with his number on it for his use alone, raised off the ground and partitioned off from the next dog, all under tents to keep the sun or rain off the dog, whichever the day may bring. There are also enormous tents for the use of the exhibitors and handlers under which they may keep their crates (in which many dogs travel to and from shows); or their collapsible tables (on which they clean up the dogs); or their lunch baskets, show equipment kits, or duffel bags. All of this may not sound very enormous to you until I tell you that this show has had an entry of 4456 dogs! Each dog is very often accompanied by two or more members of its owner's family! Of course you will often find the brave man or woman who brings three or four dogs here without any assistance. However, the show is somewhat of a spectacle, and almost all the "doggy" folks who can do so, get there somehow.

There is a gay, almost too gay, attitude here in the early hours of the show day. Everyone arriving is wearing a smile, even if a bit forced and tense, everyone is wearing his or her best manners as well as best clothes. They are waving hello to friends they haven't seen for almost a year as well as to those they saw just last night. Most are hurrying to find a spot to place their equipment so that they can rush to get their car parked, rush to get a ringside seat, so that they can place an article on it, and rush back to prepare their dogs for the big entrance into the ring where all of a sudden

no one is rushing and they will have to wait patiently until all dogs are in the ring and the judge begins his painstaking task of selecting the best in the class.

A wonderful panoramic view of a Morris and Essex dog show by the dog photographer, William Brown. This picture shows only part of the huge tents

— each umbrella you see is in a separate judging ring! Morris and Essex is really a big and important show.
Meanwhile, under the handler's tent the job of cleaning up the dogs after their journey goes on with a last-minute check on trimming, a last-minute check of the show lead, a bit more combing and brushing, with many fingers crossed and silent prayers being said. Thermos bottles of steaming hot coffee are very much in evidence, so much so that a crate top or table top will be completely covered with plastic or paper cups, some full of coffee, some emptied. On one table a dog is being sprayed with something that smells like perfume but which is actually just giving a shine to the coat. Another dog will be getting a rubdown with something that smells like alcohol. It is being used to wipe away the dust which has been attracted to the dark sleek coat, while nearby someone is furiously throwing medicinally scented talcum powder on the snow-white coat of his charge who either is still wet from a bath or who did not get a bath and whose owner is now trying to whiten him with the powder. Of course the powder blows over on the black dog next to him, and many a dagger look passes between the owners. Almost every crate or table has a bucket or pan of water setting on it or under it or next to it, and frequently a nervous person will drop some piece of equipment into it or stumble over it and get his new suit all splashed. Every so often a dog will look longingly at a bucket of water and get tired of waiting until it is offered to him, jump down from his crate, and help himself until the owner is able to reach him and place him on the table again, where he must then be all dried off with a towel for sure as shootin' he has managed to dribble it all down the front of his chest.
Occasionally you will hear the shouts of congratulations from a happy group gathering to look over a dog who has just made a nice win, and occasionally you will hear a warning cry go up from someone who did not carefully lock the exercise pen and from which one or two or more dogs are making their escape, or from someone whose dog has decided to take a piece out of another dog and who needs help in separating the quarreling dogs. You will hear high-pitched barks, deep, low barks, yelps> howls, growls, and all the other types of canine noises. If you look over your shoulder you are bound to see a young woman crying, either because her dog has just won or because her dog has not won—either one can bring on the tears.

About this time many people are walking to the enormous parking lots to sit quietly in their cars and have a bite of lunch which they stayed up late the night before to fix. Or they will bring the basket back either under the tent or just outside it and join another group who are about to have lunch. Groups of four and five will be heading for the huge caterer's tent to buy a meal or just a cup of coffee to tide them over until they have time for more. Oftentimes this will mean they will have nothing but coffee until dinnertime, when the show is finished, the cars have left, and the once immaculate show grounds are completely littered with scraps of paper, used arm bands, empty paper cups, and other debris.

This, then, is a large outdoor show. Picture all this, if you can, at an indoor show! Yes, the same thing goes on in the wintertime in large buildings all over the United States. The largest indoor show based on the number of entries is the Westminster Kennel Club show held in Madison Square Garden in New York City in mid-February. Because the building is not really big enough, this club must limit the number of entries the directors will accept to 2,500 dogs. The mail that brings the 2,500th entry closes the entries, although the actual final total will usually run about 2,550 dogs.

At this show there are problems which you would never realize exist. The unloading of a station wagon with five or ten or more dogs in it is difficult at any time, but here in the heart of New York City it is extremely trying. The Garden has but one ramp into its depths, and only one or two cars may go down at one time and the rest must wait until the first cars come out before they can enter. On a freezing cold day I have seen ten or twelve cars lined up with their motors running, waiting almost an hour to gain entry into the building. This, however, concerns only those who arrive the day before the show starts, usually those who have driven great distances. By five or six o'clock the day before the show no more cars may go down the ramp and all dogs arriving after this time must be walked down the ramp or their crates placed on trolleys and taken down by the owners or attendants. The morning of the show day you will see hundreds of dogs being walked along the street to the Forty-ninth Street entrance, the exhibitors' entrance.

At Madison Square Garden there is an entirely different setup from the one described on the polo field at Madison, New Jersey. This show is a benched show; all dogs at all times, except when they are being exercised, being judged, or being prepared for judging must be on their benches. The benching takes up almost all the space on the basement floor with just the handlers' crates, the exercise pens, and a few concessions using the balance of the space.

On the main floor the arena is used entirely for the twelve judging rings, and in the lobby there are a few concessions such as Macy's Dog Department, Abercrombie and Fitch's Dog Department, a bookseller or two, and perhaps a charitable organization. In each of the judging rings there are telephones used to call downstairs for the dogs wanted in the ring. Twice during the show a special feature is presented in the main arena. The special feature may be a sheepherding exhibition done with a few well-trained dogs and sheep brought in for the occasion from the local slaughterhouse. Or the special feature may be an exhibition of field-trial dogs pointing and retrieving birds.

This is a two-day show, and all dogs, except puppies, must be present both days. An exhibitor may remove his dog from the building at night but he must post $5.00, which he gets back the next morning when he returns with the dog. This is to insure that the spectator who pays his way into the show on the second day will see all the dogs who have been entered.

The large indoor show presents much the same picture in and around the handler's crate section except that here all the smells and noises are magnified by the closeness—there's the perfume, the alcohol, the dog food, the soiled crate; and as far as the noises are concerned, you can feel as well as hear the barks of the dogs. A crate being shifted sounds as if you were moving Grand Central Station and everyone raises his voice to be heard over the next fellow who has raised his to be heard over the other noises.
Many dogs will travel completely across country to be at these very large shows; the very cream of the crop is present. As a result the competition is extremely keen, and you will find most exhibitors wearing their nerves very close to the skin around the big shows. Most exhibitors are very tense prior to the judging of their dogs, and with the tenseness you very often get a sort of gaiety that, while not exactly forced, is usually very gay and noisy. You will find exhibitors who cannot eat because they are nervous, and you will find exhibitors who must eat constantly for the same reason. It is not at all unusual to find an exhibitor holding on to a dog's leash with one hand and pushing a sandwich into his mouth with the other while the wife or the husband or a kind friend gives the dog the final combing out before the dog is called for the judging.

A modern Westminster Kennel Club show held at Madison Square Garden in New York-City. For the Best In Show judging in which only six dogs compete, this entire arena is one big show ring.

Charley horses and sore feet are the order of the day here, as very few of the exhibitors are accustomed to running up and down stairs all day long, and they are not used to the concrete floors. Those who go every year always bring an extra pair of shoes to change into when the day is partly over. Almost everyone wishes he had an extra pair of feet, for those he came with get very tired before it is all over. At the International Kennel Club show, which is held in the International Amphitheater in Chicago, either late in March or early in April, you do not have the stairs to contend with, but the building is so large that there are times when you wish you had a pair of roller skates to help you get from one place to another. At Chicago the entry is not limited to numbers, and it is expected that someday this might become the largest of indoor shows.

Incidentally, Morris and Essex is referred to as a limited-breed show because only certain breeds are shown there. Only breeds that ordinarily draw big entries have classes provided for them at this show; breeds such as Sussex Spaniels, Harriers, Bouviers des Flandres, Lhasa Apsos, or Komondorok are not included. At Westminster in New York the show is limited not only to numbers, the 2,500 dogs I spoke of earlier, but to dogs who have previously won a blue ribbon. This insures that those dogs which are entered there will be at least fairly representative of their breeds. At Westminster you are apt to see just one dog of a breed which is known to be a rare breed, such as the Kuvaszok or the Pulik. However, at Morris and Essex you will see only the fairly popular breeds, but you can be sure that each breed will have a large entry.

There is one man whose organization is responsible for the smooth running of both these huge shows and many others of all sizes. He is George Foley, president of the Foley Dog Show

Organization, Inc., 2009 Ranstead Street, Philadelphia 3, Pennsylvania. His men erect the large tents, put up the benching, lay out the rings, help get dogs into the show ring, and give out arm bands which each exhibitor wears in the ring so that the spectators know which dog is being shown. George Foley's huge organization owns and manufactures its own benching. It owns more tenting than is owned by Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus. It owns large amounts of wire fencing used at outdoor shows, as well as solid wood fencing that is used at indoor shows for the exercise pens; it owns wood partitions which make up the show rings at many indoor shows. It also owns rubber matting, which is used as a runway on slippery floors at indoor shows. All of this is transported to the shows in Foley's own trailer trucks.

The Foley organization prints the show catalogue, an enormous job which must be accomplished in less than two weeks; it prints up the ribbons given for each award; it supplies the book in which the judge writes his decisions; it arranges for the supply of new bills to be used for prize money and for which it is reimbursed by the show-giving club.
These and many more tasks fall to the dog-show superintendent, of which the Foley organization is one of twelve authorized by the American Kennel Club to function at shows held under its jurisdiction. It also falls to the dog-show superintendent to see that all of the American Kennel Club rules pertaining to shows are obeyed during the show hours. It is also his responsibility to see that the show goes along according to the printed schedule known as the judging program.

This is a faint idea of what it is like at a big show. The smaller shows ? Well, very much the same except that it is all on a smaller basis, and for the most part the exhibitors are not quite so nervous and tense. Here large groups will get together and have pleasant chats concerning their newest dogs or their puppies. Usually only one or two rings are going at a time, with only one or two judges doing the whole show. There is more time to kill, there is not so much noise. Groups will go out to lunch or dinner together and tempers do not flare so easily with the exhibitors or with the dogs. A small outdoor show may have only one small tent which will be used only if it rains. After all, you cannot expect the judge to stand out in the rain all day while he is judging the dogs. At a small outdoor show very often the dogs are kept in cars until they are required for the judging and they will be cleaned up on the tailgate of a station wagon or on a table set up next to the car. Here the groups are inclined to gather in the parking lots, close to the dogs and to the food in the picnic baskets. You will see someone heading for the car with five or six soda bottles in one hand and the dog on the end of a lead held with the other hand. They stop to visit other dogs and other people and either say, "My, isn't it hot today," or, "My, I'm glad I brought my overcoat." You will see groups sitting on the ground next to a car with the dog or dogs tied to the bumper of the car. The dog of his own accord will stay in the shade of the car on a hot day, or lie in the sun on a cool day, one eye on the lunch basket. Yes, he will get his share of whatever it contains. These are happy groups!

At a small indoor show I have found that the exhibitors watch the judging a great deal more closely than at any other show. There is not much else to do, and the chairs around the ringside look inviting. Unless the building boasts a lunch-room or the neighborhood a good eating place, the picnic basket is as much in evidence here as at all the other shows.

Talking of small shows leads us quite naturally to the discussion of the Sanctioned Match, or Puppy Match. These I will explain in detail later, but right now I would like to say that they are similar to the small shows but are rightly thought of as "practice" shows. Practice for the dogs and, more important, practice for the one who will do the showing. A poor placing of a dog at a Sanctioned Match (sanctioned by the American Kennel Club) does not go against his show record, nor do any of the wins made at a match count toward making the dog a Champion.
People who have any knowledge of cattle shows often think of a dog as "The Grand Champion" if he has won an award similar to Best of Breed at a dog show. I have heard novices at a dog show refer to the winner of Best in Show as The Champion. This is not so. In the dog game the making of a Champion is done by the accumulation of points and cannot be done in less than three shows. This, too, is explained in detail later under the discussion of points, but it will help you to understand the language employed in this book if this little detail is cleared up now. Incidentally, it is possible to have as many as 200 or more Champion dogs entered in one show with a total entry of approximately 500 dogs.

The first of the uninterrupted series of annual dog shows sponsored by the Westminster Kennel Club was held at New York's Hippodrome in  1877.

How and when did all this get started ? From old books on the subject and from much older field-trial records we gather that sportsmen were the first to compare their dogs for beauty's sake when they got together for field trials. The very first bench show (and here we mean bench as compared with field, not referring to benched meaning dogs on benches) for which records have ever been found was held at Chicago on June 4, 1874, by the Illinois State Sportsmen's Association. On June 6 a report in Field and Stream (afterward Chicago Field and American Field) says of the show, "An exhibition of dogs without any attempt at testing their hunting ability, 21 entries." The exhibition was held in conjunction with a field trial.
The first show catalogue in the possession of the American Kennel Club is dated November 26, 27, 28, 29, and 30, 1877, seven years before that organization was born. The American Kennel Club was founded in 1884 and dog shows were already popular. The early shows were held mostly in large cities, such as New York, Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia, completely independent of each other particularly as far as time and dates were concerned. In 1885 a special meeting was called by the American Kennel Club which largely decided the future of dog shows. A record of this meeting, which is the very foundation of present-day shows, reads in part, "Proposed that clubs give shows during the next season in a circuit and committee of three for each breed of dogs to report a Standard for the judging of these respective breeds in shows given under the jurisdiction of the club." These were wise men who saw ahead and made arrangements for judging according to Standards for each breed and who also saw the necessity of approving dates for dog shows.

From those early days of shows held in big cities, completely unrelated to each other, the shows did finally run in circuits. By 1925 a circuit went something like this: New York, New York; Newark, New Jersey; New Haven, Connecticut; Boston, Massachusetts; Buffalo, New York; Cleveland, Ohio; Dayton, Ohio; Columbus, Ohio; and then to Cincinnati, Ohio. New York was a three-day show; Boston, Buffalo, Cleveland, and Cincinnati were two-day shows; and the rest were one-day shows. Handlers, either private or professional, traveled with the dogs by train. The handlers were away from home quite a long time to make such a circuit and they spent a great deal of their time in baggage cars with the dogs. One handler went so far as to hire an orchestra to accompany him on a trip, and I can just imagine the faces of people who happened to be close to the railroad tracks as the musical baggage car went by. Today there is still what you might call a circuit, starting in New York City, going from there to Hartford, Connecticut, then to New Haven, Connecticut, and then to Boston. This is only four shows in ten days. However, what is today really termed a circuit is the Virginia-Carolina circuit with eight shows in thirteen days and leading into two more shows in the next three days, making eleven shows in sixteen days. Another circuit today is the Mountain States circuit through Wyoming and Colorado, taking in nine shows in eighteen days, or the Florida circuit of nine all-breed shows in seventeen days. Practically no dogs, handlers, or owners travel by train today. Instead, you see quite a procession of station wagons making their way from one show town to the next. Many more owners go on circuits today than did those in the past, the main reason being the time element—you can take in the major part of a circuit during a two-week vacation.

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