World Dog Show: World Dog Shows: History, Facts and Figures
ARTICLE AND PHOTOS BY KARL DONVIL continued
1999 Mexico WDS
2000 Milano WDS
2002 Amsterdam WDS
2003 Dortmund WDS
give a spectacle. For the finals, horses were lifted on the second floor where the main ring was and they gave a fan- tastic performance of cavalry art. The ring stewards were all equipped with a laptop, don't forget we were still 1999! Unfortunately the halls were too small for this event, not for the dogs, but there were over 300,000 visitors in only three days! It took handlers 20 minutes to reach a ring and many carried the dogs on their hands above the people in order to move a little faster. The air- conditioning was unable to cool down, only because of the heat produced by the people. The trophies were massive silver jaguars and statues differing in size but the heaviest several kilograms in weight. Milano, Italy, was the host in 2000. I remember a lot of chaos and even fighting among the press people in the main ring in order to take a proper photo. They had a good entry number of 15,200 dogs. Porto was a rather small show with only 7,200 entries. It was decided to unite the people of the press and the first action was taken by myself to start the World Dog Press Associa- tion in order to enforce better work- ing conditions for the photographers. I also remember the finals when several Lippizaners entered the main ring and gave a nice performance of classic cav- alry art. It was here too that the local breeds were presented by people in local dress. Amsterdam was on term in 2002. 40,000 visitors was a record for Europe. It was here that the World Dog
Press was officially baptized already uniting over 65 members worldwide. Dortmund in Germany was host city in 2003. A nice entry of 18,716 dogs was nice but for the rest it was Deutsche Gründlichkeit but little show. That was no difference for Brazil that organized the next World Dog Show, but it started in minor with 11 dogs that died due to the heat. A few died on the tarmac of the airfield where they were kept in the bright sun in their cages without drink or food and brought to the show on the back of a truck. And some died at the show. Little details were given and no public sorry or whatever. It was very hot and a super boring show. Only about 2,000 dogs were entered and they came day after day as one day it was the Americas show, the second, the Brazilian Championship Show and the third day the World Dog Show. Brazil can be a dangerous country and that was clear from the fact that during the International Junior Handling compe- tition, at a certain moment the main ring was made totally clear to let one boy in, accompanied with two body- guards beside him. A weird situation for someone not familiar with public danger. On the very last day, when we thought that nothing nice would hap- pen we suddenly heard drums in the background and before we knew there was a group of Brazilian Carnival danc- ers came in the main ring and before we knew everybody on the stairs jumped over the fence and went dancing, even
the FCI president, Mr. Hans Müller, who was absolutely charmed by the scantily dressed girls with gigantic plumes. It was a strange choice of the FCI to allow the WDS to happen two succes- sive years in South America. The weight of the Americas and Asian section com- bined is not even half of the weight of the European countries. And that shows in the number of entries. Every year that the WDS is outside of Europe, we see a boost in entries for the European Show of that year, simply because the people don’t want to travel that far to take part in a show that is less significant and where the type of dogs is sometimes very different from the European types, thus limiting their chances. Often too they invite a lot of American judges who are not familiar with these types. But in 2005, an exception was made and Argentina was host country. It is said that many judges hope to be invit- ed and as the yearly FCI world meeting takes place in the host country it is a nice excuse to make a very nice travel. Argentina unintentionally entered the FCI history. Two hostile clubs of Dogo Argentina got involved in a fight and knives were used, the judge was threat- ened and wounded and there was a warning for the next day. While sitting in the Press Room with a colleague, we suddenly saw people running out of a hall and smoke seemed to come out. We ran as fast as we could with our cameras to see what had happened but were forced back as it proved to be a
150 • S how S ight M agazine , J uly 2018
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