Showsight October 2017

The National Dog Show TEXT AND PHOTOS BY DAN SAYERS

A Broadcast Bonanza for Purebred Dogs

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 represen-

tative 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.”

A Show Site Scramble In the years that followed the Centennial Show, the Kennel Club of Philadelphia found itself without a perma-

modate 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

nent 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 con- structed 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 accom-

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 night- ware.” With entries dipping below 1,000 for the first time in decades, the club needed to find a show site that worked for exhibitors and for the club. “I started to look for new places and found Fort Washington,” Wayne says of the Expo Center

The National Dog Show is a broadcast of NBC Sports and is televised nationally after the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

148 • S HOW S IGHT M AGAZINE , O CTOBER 2017

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