ShowSight Interviews
David Murray, Players Tibetan Terriers BY ALLAN REZNIK
Where did you
Club benched dog show and I knew right away this was something I would want to do. My first purebred dog was a Sheltie from a breeder in the Midwest named Shirley Valo. I took him to that same obedi- ence class and eventually put a UD on him. I showed him fair- ly extensively around the Midwest and I believe he was the No. 1 obedience Sheltie in the country in 1972. Around that time I started to want to compete in conformation and ended up getting a Golden Retriever puppy from Dick and Ludell Beckwith. I got very lucky as that first conformation dog, pur- chased as an eight-week-old “hopeful,” turned out to be a mul- tiple Group and all-breed BIS winner. I competed in Juniors with him and ended up in the final cut at the Garden under Annie Clark! I won several Groups with him and around 1976 Connie Gerstner (now Miller) took him for about a year and ended up putting that elusive BIS on him, under Louis Murr. I took him home from that show and that was my last show for more than ten years. After graduating from high school I lost interest in dog shows and pursued my career. Around 1987, while living in L.A., my father came out for a visit. I remember it was a rainy Sunday and that morning, while trying to figure out something we could do, I looked in the paper and saw an ad for the Kennel Club of Beverly Hills dog show. It was held downtown in those days, at the Sports Arena, and I said, “Hey, there’s a dog show in town, do you want to go?”
grow up?
I am originally from St. Louis Park, Minne- sota, a suburb of Min- neapolis. I had always wanted to live in a warmer climate and ended up moving to San Francisco. That was not the California climate I was hoping for! I lived
there for four years, from 1980 to 1984. After a quick visit to Los Angeles, I decided that Southern California had the cli- mate and lifestyle more to my liking and during the Summer Olympics of 1984 I moved south. Do you come from a doggy family? And if not, how did the interest in breeding and showing begin? Did you get into Tibetan Terriers from the start? My family was not doggy at all but I was for as long as I can remember. My introduction to this world was through obedience with a mixed-breed dog that we got from the local humane society. They offered obedience classes and when I won first place in my puppy graduating class, I was hooked! Earlier my father had taken me to the Minneapolis Kennel
174 • S how S ight M agazine , O ctober 2018
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