Show Dog by Josh Dean. Ah, show dogs! The prima donnas of the canine world (and that includes the males.) I picked up this newly published book in hopes a little dog show reality would help me get over my crush on Westminster's 2012 Best in Show, Malachy. This Pekingese, as Josh Dean says, is an animal that appears to be a Pac Man ghost bred to an angora goat and looks pretty much like Cousin It from the Addams Family. What better way to take my mind off Malachy than to read a book about Jack, an Australian Shepherd, a dog that looks like a generic Dog.
Jack coulda been a contenda. He may, some time in the future be one of the "campaigned" dogs who are in line to win Best in Show at big dog shows. He blew onto the scene and came away with his championship status in four months. He's a delightful character and a splendid show dog.
But the dog show world is complicated and seldom does a dog like Jack, whose owner can't afford to pay a handler to travel with him to shows all over the country all year or to advertise in dog magazines in an attempt to bring him to the attention of judges, make it to top dog in the US or to the winner's circle at Westminster. But people who love dogs love to show them off and dogs like Jack, who are natural showmen, want to be shown, so his owner will probably bring him back to the show circuit.
Meanwhile, in spending a year following Jack around, meeting owners, handlers, judges, and others in the dog world, Josh Dean has learned much that ranges from interesting and amusing to hilarious to downright weird. For example, did you know that George Washington was a breeder of American Foxhounds and instrumental in defining the breed? That there are 15,000 polar bears in Canada alone, but only 500 Sealyham terriers in the entire world? That Berger Picards are often mistaken for Wirehaired Portuguese Podengo Media? (I had to throw that in there. If Sealyhams, which are familiar to everyone, are down to 500 dogs, how many Wirehaired Portuguese Podengo Media can there be out there?)
The dogs are characters, but the people who own and show them are, as we learned from the movie, Best in Show, sometimes more eccentric than the dogs. One owner tells the story of a handler who was kicked out of a show in Pennsylvania . . . for relieving herself in the exercise pen.
It seems that this owner of a field spaniel who "almost certainly having spent too much time in the company of dogs, ducked into one of those sawdust lined, fenced enclosures . . . and not just any ex-pen. It was the one for puppies, which has a short door intended to keep out larger dogs. The woman . . . had to crunch down into a ball and crawl to get in, and then - to add to the indignity - she got stuck on the way out. Within a few minutes of her ungainly exit, someone had hung a sign that said DOGS ONLY."
The book is full of anecdotes and serious discussions about such things as breeding and health, popularity of breeds, cost of advertisements ($4,500 for the cover of The Canine Chronicle), the difficulties of training a dog to perform in a dog show, and the money flowing into the American dog show world from emerging economies, with major players now in Brazil and China, for example.
A wonderful book and I hope not the last from Josh Dean who lives in Brooklyn with his wife, son, and imaginary pet dog.
2012 No 33
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