My lovely bride is in New York today for the Westminster Kennel Club show.  She was handling Dutch and, while the Beeg Boy didn’t get any awards, he made every cut to the last.  Quite impressive considering that Dutch was among the youngest of the entries.  He’s at least a year away from being truly competitive at the breed/group level so while this isn’t everything we could have gotten, it’s about what we might have expected at the best.

The judge, Espen Engh, was kind enough to ask my lovely bride whether Lacey was still alive.  Mr. Engh gave Lacey her last and greatest Best of Breed win at the 2006 Borzoi Club of America National Specialty.

Congratulations to Casper (Best of Breed), Annie (Best of Opposite) and to Gennady, Sean and Mandalay Bay (Awards of Merit).

Historically, Westminster has combined the spacious comfort of the Black Hole of Calcutta with the hospitality of the Bataan Death March.  This year, I understand, was even worse.  There are renovations taking place at Madison Square Garden and the usual benching wasn’t used.  Not mentioned in the premium list was that all dogs have to be crated instead of being allowed to lounge freely at their designated spot.  This created something of a panic as our party had only two crates for four dogs.

As well, I was watching the Red Wings – Rangers game yesterday afternoon and suddenly realized it was being played at MSG.  So along with desperate exhibitors trying to get set up under conditions even more crowded than usual there were hockey fans wandering around.

Something really should be done about this.  The Westminster Kennel Club isn’t some impoverished club just getting by, it’s the most prestigious and wealthiest club in America.  Why conditions have to be so unnecessarily miserable for exhibitors is a mystery.  Don’t expect the dog press to be concerned as they’re too busy going to glam parties to think much about it:  “Pity about the lower classes… Something should be done… Yes, I’ll have some more champagne…”