Showsight - March 2018

Becoming BY JACQUELYN FOGEL Discovering Westminster 2018

This was another terrific year at Westminster! I love this show and everything that goes on around it. It certainly doesn’t hurt that the show takes place in my very favorite big city, New York. This year I discovered, or re-discov- ered some really great things about this week of events that I’d like to share.

tell. It was hard coming up with placements – a lot like judging a class of 150 great dogs – hard but gratifying. All deserved recognition. It was most wonderful to see the thousands of spectators who were jammed into the two buildings eager to meet our pure bred dogs and their breeders. New Yorkers love their dogs – and pure bred breeders put on a marvelous show for their audience. I discovered that spending an extra day in New York after the Big Show can be really relaxing and fun! I trav- eled out with my husband and another couple who all love the theater, so we decided to spend Valentine’s Day in the City instead of in airports and shuttle buses. We spent the day eating a late breakfast and going to see ‘Dear Evan Hansen,’ a super musical that was available relatively inexpensively because it was a Wednesday matinee. Then we walked around mid-town, had a leisurely dinner with our Valentines, got to be early, and made it to the airport early for an uneventful trip home one day later than usual. We have been going to Westminster almost every year since 2000, and we keep extending our stay. Now we come in on Thursday to make sure we get to at least a Friday show and a Sunday matinee. And this year we extended our stay an extra day. We’re up to a full week now, and even that time goes way too fast. I don’t think seeing four shows is too much, though I must admit I’ve become a Broadway snob, and don’t enjoy local productions near as much as the deep talent found in New York. This year the limited engage- ment of John Leguizamo’s ‘Latin History for Morons’ was especially fun. I was fortunate to be sitting with dear friend Celeste Gonzales who filled me in on a lot of the Spanish translations that Mr Leguizamo left out of his bril- liant one-man show. Thanks to her, I now know some really cool Spanish words that probably don’t show up in dictionaries. I have re-discovered that the people I admire most in this sport are the people who know how to lose and win graciously. They are excited for their placements, even if there is some disappointment that it wasn’t higher. They say nice things about many of their their competitors – at least the ones they are willing to talk about – and they don’t slam anybody ringside. If there are people they don’t admire, you don’t know it by talking to them ring- side. I watched standard poodles, and the competition was remarkably intense, but when the judging was over, they all acted like adults who were happy to be there. Nobody wants to lose with a dog that you just spent 5+ hours putting up, but all of the poodle people I spoke to were pleasant and composed. They all had a long-term philosophical view of the day’s events, and they came away loving their dogs whether or not they won the top honor. The competition was nail-biting drama up until the very end, and I loved every minute of it. >

I have re-discovered that I can observe class judging with friends and other judges, and disagree on placements. These discus- sions can be enlightening and fun as long as the peo- ple involved don’t get angry, and we rarely do. It’s easiest in breeds we

don’t have a joint vested interest in, but it’s possible in all breeds, even the ones we really, really, really care about. No, we are not even close to coming to blows. We were, however, at times animated and intense while talking about the things we were seeing, and the respect among us was palpable. I have been a student of hounds for more than 45 years, and there is still a lot I don’t know. I learned so much from some long-time sight hound judges I sat with, and my respect for them just soared. Talking with long-term successful dog people is like being in a state of Nirvana for me, and Westminster is the place to do it because it brings dogs and fanciers from all over the country together. I continue to discover that watching the Group judg- ing at the Garden is better than watching it on a TV, even if the TV screen is really big. I found myself watching both the actual dogs on the floor, and the jumbotron at the Garden. If there was ever a doubt about what we were seeing, we found it best to watch the actual dog. The jumbotron offered a different perspective, and it was nice when the judging was not on the same end of the arena as our seats, but it is not a replacement for observ- ing the actual dogs. The TV angle doesn’t give you the whole picture that you see when you watch the actual dog and handler. I am eternally grateful that we were invited to sit with Joe McGinnis in his Showsight box. But even in the nosebleed seats I still like to see the show live. It’s like seeing baseball on TV versus at the stadium. I like seeing the whole thing as it’s happening. I discovered that I loved judging the Meet-The Breeds booths! I cannot begin to convey the awe I felt as we went around the two buildings looking at all of the booths staffed entirely with volunteers in all of the AKC breeds. There were hundreds of beautiful, educational booths, and many hundreds of volunteers willing to talk to anybody about their purposeful, well-bred dogs. Some had volunteers that went into the audience and pulled you in to meet “Fluffy”, and some that had so many breed-related facts it made my head swim. Some had huge, wonderful photos of their breed in action, and some had the cutest costumes you can imagine. All rep- resented the breeds well, and it was delightful to see the public get pulled into the stories these volunteers had to

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