Showsight January 2018

WORLD DOG SHOW LEIPZIG, GERMANY | DECEMBER 21 by KARL DONV I L I t was supposed to become a big show, a very big one. Germany accepted to take over the orga- nization of the 2017 World Dog

in 1991 but it’s difficult to say how many individual dogs Crufts had as dogs can be entered in more than one class. Paris 2011 had about 38,000 dogs, but that includes the WDS, the French Cham- pionship show and the different Club shows. The number of dogs entered for the show here was 21,588. Of course most of the dogs entered for the Ger- man Winner were probably entered for the World Show. Best is to focus on the main show and then Leipzig is undoubt- edly the winner. For once it was easy and straightforward to see the last cata- logue end with dog number 24,692, and without entering different classes! This is the seventh time that Germany orga- nizes the World Show starting in 1935, then 1956, 1973, 1981, 1991 and last time in 2003! There were around 280 different breeds on display; the Minia- ture Schnauzers leading with 562 speci- mens. Eight other breeds had 300-375 entries and 13 others counted 200-300! There were many German Shepherds but it must be said that a World Cham- pionship for German Shepherds has impressive numbers of dogs while here, in the country of origin, there were only 154. For a dog show, very good, but nothing compared to their own cham- pionships. The dogs came from no less than 73 different countries. The big- gest part were German dogs, 8,577 fol- lowed by Russia with 3,463 entries. Italy had 2,295 dogs, Czech Republic 1,770, Poland 1,737, Sweden 1,460, Denmark 1,421, France 1,219 and Finland 1,174. There were 621 dogs entered from The United Kingdom, 99 from the States and 11 from Australia. Among the rare countries there were dogs entered from Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, Sri Lanka and Vietnam, India and Pakistan. In number of dogs there were little over 400 dogs from other continents, all the rest were from Europe. All those dogs were judged by no less than 203 judges coming from 45 different countries. I have no idea if this includes the judg- es for the sports competitions too. It’s an impressive number, there are more impressive numbers like the 90,000

visitors! I’m not going to discuss this number but probably due to the five massive halls and the area they cover, 85,000 square meters, it gave a false impression and not a crowded one. Not- withstanding the relatively high prices for an entry ticket, this very good score has probably got its effect from the Ger- man media that covered it well. In my hotel I saw myself a long shot on some national channel and that was only one. I’m sure there were several ones the first days and indeed Saturday and Sun- day one could experience more difficul- ties to go from one hall to another, but once in such a hall, there was so much open space between the rings that eas- ily five large trucks could drive in the middle corridor side by side. It gave an empty and quiet impression. And not withstanding all that space, the exhibi- tors complained about the size of the rings that were comparably small. One had to have good legs to go all around. The distances to cover were impressive and I wonder how professional handlers managed to run from one hall to anoth- er if they had to be in several rings. Four halls or even three could have been enough. It was very clean all around. Hall Two was only partially used for Dog Dancing and Agility and in a corner of Hall Three there was the first Europe- an Championship Dog Diving. Unfortu- nately this most enjoyable competition had its finals at the same moment as the finals in the main ring! The Dog Danc- ing competition was now according the new FCI rules, set up earlier this year in Paris. This competition had 110 par- ticipants. Sweden won the team compe- tition, Elke Boxoen and Jessy won the individual competition, a gold medal for Belgium Dogs were in competition for the World Championship Agility. Tradi- tionally there is also the World Cham- pionship Junior Handling with partici- pants from 35 different countries. Every day three Juniors were selected to go to the finals that was judged on Sunday by Liz Carledge from the UK. A big show has always some interesting breeds to see, breeds that you can only see on

Show that was supposed to happen in Ecuador, but due to natural disasters they were not able to fulfill this com- mitment. In relatively short time the Verband für das Deutsche Hundewesen or better known as VDH, managed to set up this huge organization and every time when it happens in Europe, a high number of entries are expected, espe- cially as a lot of exhibitors hesitated to go the Kiev, due to the unstable politi- cal situation. For Kiev this was bad luck as if Ecuador would have organized the WDS, there would certainly have been a lot more entries. But now, a lot of peo- ple decided to subscribe for Leipzig. The Leipziger Messe, the expo cen- tre where the dog show took place, is modern and huge. The central hall is a masterpiece of modern architecture. Leipzig has an airport with good con- nections, as well as fast railway connec- tions and with car it was no problem. In and around the halls, the traffic was no problem and everything was efficiently arranged for the exhibitors, good park- ing place, no cueing and fast veterinary control. Visitors and hotel residents from Leipzig could travel directly by tram, stopping right in front of the halls. Leipzig had affordable accommo- dation and that contributes to the suc- cess of such an event. If hotels are too expensive, it affects the number of visi- tors, press and exhibitors, especially for events that spread over five days! So all of this was well thought over and the result was there: 24,692 unique dogs entered for the show only! With anoth- er 6,423 dogs entered for the German Winner show, plus the numerous dogs taking part in the sports disciplines and specialty shows, the VDH claims to have 31,115 dogs! That makes this show into the biggest dog show ever held! Crufts is dethroned and the new ver- sion of the Guinness Record Book will from now on mention Leipzig. The KC claims 22,991 as its record and that was

154 • S how S ight M agazine , J anuary 2018

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