The Breeders

Nobody in their right mind would argue with the importance of encouraging breeders, and no show does so more enthusiastically than this one. Kudos to AKC for highlighting the award for Best Bred-by-Exhibitor in Show almost as much as the “real” Best in Show, and to Eukanuba for backing up that competition with a big fancy check (see above)!

There is also the “Breeder of the Year” award that’s presented prior to Best in Show, with the seven finalists present in the ring for the big announcement. It’s a terrific idea and wonderful PR, but for the sake of those breeders who are nominated AKC needs to make public exactly what criteria  are employed for selecting them. Right now, all that’s known is that the award is “bestowed on individuals who have dedicated their lives to improving the health, temperament and longevity of their breed.” That’s pretty vague and does not even indicate whether show wins, as you might expect, are taken into consideration at all. The breeders selected deserve better than that!
The 2006 nominees are all well known as breeders of top quality dogs: Judy Colan (Colsidex Weimaraners), Susan Lacroix Hamil (Quiet Creek Bloodhounds), Sandra D’Andrea (Nanuke Alaskan Malamutes), Beverly Verna (Regency Miniature Schnauzers), Jose Cabrera and Fabian Arienti (Starfire Pomeranians), Kathy and George Beliew (Imagine Chow Chows), and the ultimate winner of the “Breeder of the Year” award, Douglas and Michaelanne Johnson (Bugaboo Old English Sheepdogs).

International Flavor

Then we have the international aspects of the show. According to AKC “the top dogs in the world” were invited to participate, but exactly how this was done or how those dogs were selected is not clear. Such an omission should be easy to fix. Frankly, most of the foreign people I know who own top dogs had barely heard about the AKC National show. In any case, few seem to have responded to the invitation; as far as I could find from an analysis of the catalog, of the 2,285 dogs entered exactly 92 came from abroad. Of those, 57 were either from Canada or Mexico, which is probably about average at a show of this size, especially one held so close to the Mexican border. Of the 35 long-distance entries, most came from South America (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Peru and Venezuela). A couple each came from Hong Kong and Japan; one from India (a first?), three from Germany, two from Norway, one from Sweden and three from the U.K. That’s enough to provide a cosmopolitan spice but hardly enough to make this a really international show. Whether the foreign entries are all “the top dogs” in their own countries I do not know, but it’s peculiar that several were of the same breed, from the same country and even owned by the same person.

In any case, the foreign-owned dogs did not feature high in the final awards; many were absent, some didn’t win, and a few that did well went unremarked by the TV commentators. (That includes even such a high-profile winner as the 2005 Top Dog of all breeds in the U.K., the Cocker Spaniel Ch. Afterglow Douglas Fashion, who placed in the Sporting Group. He has been campaigned in the U.S. in 2006 but is returning home to England soon.)

The judges provided a more reliably international flavor than the dogs. A half- dozen officiated at the AKC National show, others at the preceding events in the same location. Whether they were all judging the breeds they are best qualified for I can’t say; there was the usual griping when an expected winner didn’t come through, but that happens under American judges also. No question about it, however, we in America are much less accustomed to “outside opinions” than dog people elsewhere, and I think most people welcome a fresh opinion.

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