Westminster Doggy Style

The Westminster Dog Show was held this week, and the winner was a Scottish Deerhound named Hickory. (Full nom d’dog show: GCH Foxcliffe Hickory Wind.) I’d never heard of a Scottish Deerhound, but that doesn’t mean much. I’d never heard of a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, a Kuvasz, or a Petit Bassetts Griffon Vendeen, either.

I like the looks of this year’s winner. I’d rather see a full-frontal face picture, rather than this tail between the legs shot, but Hickory appears to have a dog look I find quite appealing, that of an FFM (Fur-Faced Mutt).

Hickory, of course, is no mutt.

Mutts may the the most common dog out and about, but the Westminster Kennel Club is strictly NMNA – No Mutts Need Apply. Pure-breds, only. Which matters, because in competition they score them on all sorts of breed-specific markers that only folks obsessing about breed perfection need to know about. (Ratio of tan to black, width of chest, droopiness of ears, pointiness of snout, alignment of teeth [perfect dog bite]…) How they compare breed to breed to come up with Best in Show must be another story.

Still, this bitch looks mighty cute – and here I’m using the official doggy gender designation. Under “sex”, dogs are listed as “bitch” or “dog” rather than F and M. Another indication that it’s a man’s world – male dogs get the good name; females get the pejorative. Those curs!

Anyway, on the news the other night, someone interviewed at the dog show said that you need to invest about $50K in your show pup in order to win a ribbon, even for the canine equivalent of Miss Congeniality. (Bitch Tailwagger?)

But to win the Best in Show, this person claimed, you’d have to drop about $1M. That’s an awful lot of Milk Bones.

There are plenty of reasons why it costs an arm and a leg a paw and a tail to win The Big One.

David Frei, director of communications for the Westminster Kennel Club, said preparing a dog to compete at the highest level would cost an owner upwards of six figures annually.

The bulk of that price comes from enlisting a professional handler, Frei said.

“At the heart and soul of this sport are the owner/handlers,” Frei said. “They have dogs living with them full-time as members of their families. Campaigning a dog as a top 20 potential is probably going to cost you six figures between handling fees, boarding for the handler, grooming, travel, show entries and advertising.” (Source: Fox Business News.)

Advertising? Huh? It must be like the studios that take the ads out in Variety to plump for their stars to win an Oscar.

Advertising aside, I find it kind of sad that the owners actually don’t have their doggies living with them. Instead, they farm them out to breeders who get all the love and face licks – do show dogs even lick facess? – but who are, essentially, providing a love-for-sale kind of service. This seems like sending a seven year old off to boarding school. Why’d you have them if you don’t want them around?

But the primo-dog show circuit is big time, and those who invest in it as a hobby are, apparently, not that interested in the face lick, tail wag, and hop in bed aspects of dog ownership. (Here we’ll ignore the dog-fart, poop-scooping, shoe-chewing aspects of dog ownership.)

So owners pay the big bucks to have the dogs groomed, handled, and trained for show – not for fun, companionship, amusement, and affection.

They are, after all, owners, so they can do whatever they want with their property.

In this, they are unlike most dog owners I know who, in fact, are not really dog owners, as they are a part of a family with a canine member or two. Which – since that first brave and canny person decided that a wolf puppy might be fun to have around - has pretty much been what dogs have become.

At the bottom line, owning a show dog is kind of like owning a race horse. Except that no one wrestles with a horse, or feeds one from a bowl on the kitchen floor. And the stud fees for the big dog show winners aren’t quite up to the level commanded by a Kentucky Derby stud.

The individuals (and syndicates) who own show dogs don’t get much of a payback.

“It doesn’t … touch what you spend,” Frei said.

As I said up-front, I was happy to see a cute-faced dog win, not to mention a dog that wasn’t all frou-frou’d up.

The dogs I feel really bad for are the standard poodles, which are nice, smart, cute old pooches. But you’d never know this to see the ones who take home the non-doggy bowl at Westminster.

This poor bitch was this year’s Best of Breed.

Yikes! This is kind of like dressing your two-year old up to look like Lady Gaga. Some things are just not right. And, most assuredly, no standard poodle would choose this look for itself.

Bad enough when it’s done for a bitch, but they do it for boy dogs, too.

How can this poor bastard look a mutt in the eye?

Not all show dogs look ridiculous, of course. C.f., Hickory.

But they all do seem to have grandiose names. No Fido. No Rex. No Prince.

In honor of my dog-nephew, plain old Jack, I thought I’d check out the names of some of the black lab entrants at Westminster.

Camelot’s Dragon Toy. Tabatha’s Glacieridge Briar. Ghoststone’s Otterly Fantastic Hollywood Kid.

Jack would have to have a more resplendent moniker in order to compete. North Shore Animal Shelter Pound Puppy Jack? Cutie Pie Kong-Mowing Lay-about Jack? Dog-bed Chewing Let Me Sleep Poop Already Jack?

Nah. Just plain Jack is good enough- it’s all the style that doggy needs.