Dog show celebrates milestones

Published 11:59 pm Saturday, February 19, 2011

If you watched the USA Network this past Monday and Tuesday night you watched a piece of dog history. The Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show celebrated its 135th year last week.

The Westminster dog show has been displaying fine dogs since 1877. It is held in Madison Square Garden in New York City. The competing dogs are broken down into seven groups.

More than 2,500 champions compete each year for the title of Best in Show.

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They must make it through the pre-judging rounds to make it to the prime time show you watch on TV.

When you watch a group being judged, for example the Toy Group, they are not judged against each other- the breed is judged to its standard. The breed’s standard is what they should look and act like to have a chance to become a champion. This would include color, size, look, coat, and gait.

It all started Monday night with the hound group. The hound group contains two different types of hounds: sight hounds and scent hounds. Some examples of sight hounds would be a greyhound or Afghan hound.

Examples of scent hounds are the beagle and the bloodhound.

Two of the new breeds competed in the hound group; the blue tick Hound and the redbone hound.

The Scottish deerhound took best of the hound group.

The hound group was followed by the toy group. The toys are bred to be companions to humans. The Pekinese was the toy group favorite.

The third group to strut their stuff was the non-sporting group. This is basically a miscellaneous group for breeds that do not fit into another category.

Originally there were only two groups in the American Kennel Club: sporting and non-sporting.

This group includes breeds like the Boston Terrier, which was the first breed recognized as an American developed dog by the AKC. The winner of the non-sporting group was the Chinese shar-pei.

The herding group was next. This is made up dogs that herd; they could be called the farmer of dogs. bearded collie was top dog in this group.

Next up was the sporting group. This group is made up of gun dogs, retrievers, spaniels, and other hunting dogs. The black cocker spaniel took first in his group.

The working group followed the sporting group. Working breeds are dogs that were developed to do a job, such as guarding or pulling sleds.

Dogs in this group are best owned by an experienced owner that will be the leader of the pack. Top working dog went to the Portuguese water dog, which is also the same breed that currently lurks the halls of the White House.

The last group of the night was the feisty terrier group. Top terrier went to the smooth fox terrier.

The night ended with the best in show. The best in show class is made up of the seven winners from each AKC group. The coveted title went to Hickory, the Scottish deerhound.

Shows like the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show promote responsible dog ownership by educating the public on the multitude of breeds and their characteristics.

Be a happy dog owner, be an educated dog owner.

Remember, every dog deserves to be treated like a show dog.

Tony Barker

The BARKer Shop