Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show

Grinstead Lupine, our paws-down pick for the Best in Show at this year’s Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, was all smiles on the green carpet this morning at Madison Square Garden, despite losing the best of breed category to his top competition: Remedi’s Medicyne Man, the top Sussex Spaniel in the nation.

Lupi arrived at the bustling competition around 9:30 that morning. His owner, Patricia Petraglia, and his professional handler, Geoff Dawson, took him backstage into the grooming area to brush out his “golden liver”-colored coat. Surrounded by howling dogs getting pruned, blow-dried and bow-tied, Lupi didn’t need too much grooming besides a little trim around his toes. Just before showtime, Ms. Petraglia gave Lupi a kiss on his silky coat and said, “Just have fun out there.”  read more »

Meet Emma Jean Stephenson, of Beaver Falls, Penn. Ms. Stephenson has been in the dog-showing business for 48 years, breeding and showing Dachshunds (longhair, smooth, and wiry)—many, she said, who end up with New York City owners.

Behind her was one of her dogs, Gunner (Ch. E.J’s Gunner’s Grandson), who didn’t seem to be the least bit perturbed by the noise and din of the back room.

He is indeed the grandson of one of Ms. Stephenson’s champions dogs, E.J.’s Top Gun.  read more »

On Sunday, Feb. 10, at the Doyle auction house’s 10th Annual Dogs in Art Auction brunch on East 87th Street, Grinstead Lupine, a 4-year-old Sussex spaniel with a sausage-shaped belly and droopy eyes the color of maple syrup, parked himself between two antique sideboards, underneath a painting of Romans barreling through the Colosseum on snarling horses.

Two days before he was scheduled to compete against thousands of dogs for the top prize at the 132nd Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show at Madison Square Garden, Lupi, as he is known, was hamming it up for some of his canine competitors and their owners, who were looking at art, sipping at mimosas and nibbling on fruit muffins. He rolled on his back to receive a tummy rub from the coat-check attendant and posed on his haunches for pictures, looking like a sort of fluffy totem pole, with his paws hanging limp and relaxed from his brawny shoulders.  read more »

Patty Hearst won last night!

From the breathless account in The Times (London):

In 1974 her photo was splashed across the front pages as a kidnap-victim-turned-girl- terrorist who toted a machine gun to rob a bank with her radical captors.

"I'm Tanya. Up against the wall, motherf******s," she cried.

People change, however. Yesterday Patty Hearst won a top prize with Diva, her French Bulldog, at the genteel Westminster Kennel Club show in Madison Square Garden, New York.  read more »

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Poppy, a one-and-a-half-year-old Bouvier des Flandres, might be the youngest dog at the Garden tonight. She didn’t win anything in her group, but her triple threat owner/breeder/handler Brian Gunther said he was very proud of her, as she is seventh in a generational line he has raised since puppyhood.

Mr. Gunther, the president of the Bouvier des Flandres Club of Canada, hails from Quebec (English is his second language). He’s a retired architect.

“This is a hobby that has somehow turned into my passion,” he said.  read more »

This dog, Shaggy (of course), borrowed a hair clip from his owner, who was too unhappy with his performance today to talk.

This is Ch. Sylvan Argent Simply Irresistible. Her father’s name was Ch. Sylvan's Above And Beyond  read more »

Hunter (Ch. Sunbursts Huntsman at Machta), is the four-year-old, one-hundred-pound winner of his Best of Breed (Borzoi) earlier today.

Now he’s waiting patiently with his co-owner and handler, Marilyn McGraw, to compete in the Hound group, which is the first group up tonight. Borzoi were originally bred in Russia as status symbols, Ms. McGraw, of San Juan Bautista, Calif. said. She was wearing a blue shiny suit, and is considered, amongst the dog-handling folks, to be kind of a knockout (“Nicole Kidman’s got nothing on Marilyn,” a woman from a neighboring stall said).  read more »

It sure is nice to see someone with a chance of winning at Madison Square Garden (cough—Knicks!).

Ch. Black Monday, a Plott—the first of the four new breeds acknowledged by the Westminster Kennel Club this year—made his Madison Square Garden debut last night.

We spent last night at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show at Madison Square Garden.

File this under things we didn't know about the dog show: There is a lot of frantic grooming during the commercial break. (Like morning television programs, perhaps?) And howling ... how come you can't hear that on TV? (Again ...) Also? When did Bloodhounds get so popular?  read more »