At least the Westminster Kennel Club in New York selected a real dog, a man’s kind of dog, as the best in show for its 128th critical get-together last week. The champion Newfoundland is built like a bear.
But in almost a century, the club has yet to choose the best breed in the world, the Samoyed, as best of show or even best of the working group.
Even the Chihuahua, which is really too nervous for this sort of competition, has won its group before, meaning it’s the best of that sort of dog. Chihuahuas are in the dust mite group, along with the Yorkshire terriers.
Admittedly, the Samoyed is more obscure than, say, a Labrador retriever or a golden retriever. But neither of those dogs, which the American Kennel Club says are the most popular, has won best in show at Westminster since 1907, according to the club archive.
Why are Sammies so great? Other than being the Elvis of dogs as far as attracting strangers, they behave a lot like guys: They won’t do what they’re trained to do without an obvious reward; they get bored easily; they speak without being spoken to; they run away and don’t come back.
I understand; this show is not a popularity contest. It’s a combination of judges deciding which dogs best fit the breed clubs’ standards.
But how is it that dogs requiring little more than a good brushing to look fantastic often can’t defeat dogs that have to have pieces cut off to make them win? Examples: the poodle, whose fur is sculpted to look like a cartoon figure with exterior air bags, or a Doberman, which doesn’t enter the show ring with all the parts it was born with. Is this a carving competition?
I can’t say why the Labs and goldens can’t win the big show, but as a conspiracy theorist, I think something smells. In this competition, as in seemingly most, the beautiful white sled dog/herder/companion Samoyed was quickly dismissed from its group competition. I wanted to throw a chew toy!
So the day after the Samoyed was stiffed, I talked to a couple of other Sammie people with cooler heads.
Mary A. Frederick of Marseilles, president of the Chicagoland Samoyed Club, said that though she thinks the breed often gets a raw deal in the big shows, she believes the breed has been eroded during the last few decades.
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And Tom Delaney of Saugerties, N.Y., president of the Samoyed Club of America, said that though he adores the breed, he cannot fault the judges. “It’s an incredibly hard job to compare apples and oranges. They do a pretty good job.” He would toss me just one bone: “The judge may like certain breeds better than others and subconsciously will put them a little higher in their minds.”
Finally, Jennifer Boznos, owner of the Call of the Wild dog-training school in Chicago, as kindly as she could, called me naive and said: “It’s a business just like anything else.”
Yet, baseball is a business, too, but I have to love it.
So we all have another chance to see how the Samoyeds, Labs and goldens fare when the International Kennel Club of Chicago hosts a huge three-day show at McCormick Place North starting Friday. Indications from show spokeswoman Patricia Montgomery were that heavy hitters from Westminster will be in town.
Go Sammies!
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Send e-mail for Ross Werland to [email protected].