THE NATIONAL DOG SHOW A BROADCAST BONANZA FOR PUREBRED DOGS
(A VERSION OF THIS ARTICLE APPEARED IN THE OCTOBER 2017 ISSUE OF SHOWSIGHT.)
A SHOW SITE SCRAMBLE In the years that followed the Centennial Show, the Kennel Club of Philadelphia found itself without a permanent home. The complex that hosted the nation’s largest dog show was sold, and the buildings—including Philip Johnson’s Convention Hall—were demolished to make way for a specialized medical facility of the University of Pennsylvania. In 1993, the show moved to the newly constructed Pennsylvania Convention Center, but the facility’s Center City location and its organized workforce proved problematic. As club President Wayne Ferguson tells it, the new hall presented special challenges for a dog club that needs to accommodate both Mastiffs and motor homes. “Handlers didn’t like it because of problems with rooms and parking and so on,” he says. “And it’s a union hall, by the way, which robbed us blind.” Wayne reports that the facility charged $21.00 per square foot just to vacuum the rings. “Of course, they insisted on doing it twice,” he discloses. “It was a nightware.” The catalog for the American Kennel Club’s Centennial Dog Show and Obedience Trial, held at the Philadelphia Civic Center on November 17 and 18, 1984, includes the following excerpts regarding the club’s earliest beginnings: “On September 17, 1884, a group of dedicated sportsmen met in the rooms of the Philadelphia Kennel Club, at the northeast corner of 13th and Market Streets, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Each member of the group was a representative or “Delegate” from a dog club. Each of those dog clubs had held at least one benched show or field trial in the recent past… It is unlikely that the twelve individuals that attended the first meeting of what was to become The American Kennel Club had any idea of the impact that this meeting would have on the sport in this country… It is fitting that the celebration of The American Kennel Club’s 100th Anniversary culminate in the holding of a dog show and obedience trial in Philadelphia.”
ARTICLE AND PHOTOS BY DAN SAYERS
150 | SHOWSIGHT MAGAZINE, OCTOBER 2021
Powered by FlippingBook