But I couldn’t close this chapter without sharing with you all this charming video from a young girl with a bright future as a dog journalist, reporting from the benching area at the Garden, where she’s interviewing the dogs.

No, that wasn’t a typo. She’s interviewing the dogs. And Tiger, the Deerhound who won the Hound Group at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show Monday night? It’s at the end, and it’s worth the wait.

Incredible for a breed as rare as the Sussex spaniel, there are even three dogs available from Petfinder’s more than 12,000 affiliated rescue groups and shelters  who may well be related to Stump, the 10-year-old charmer who won the big show last night.  Yes, Petfinder reports three Sussex spaniels in their database. Along with all kinds of poodles, akitas, setters, greyhounds, terriers of all sorts and lots and lots of dogs whose breed is all their own.

Heck, Petfinder will even help you if you want to adopt a cat!

Most recently, we briefly discussed her upcoming judging assignment for Westminster. Here’s a transcript of our interview:

Kim Thornton: When were you approached about judging Best in Show and how did you feel when you were asked?

Sari Tietjen: I was asked in March 2007. Needless to say, as someone who grew up in the sport and who has attended more Westminsters than I care to admit, I was thrilled and deeply honored.

Kim Thornton: Is there anything one can do to prepare to judge something like Westminster?

Sari Tietjen: Pray a lot! Seriously, at that level, you know you’re going to have some beautiful dogs in the ring. You have to keep your wits about you, judge each dog against its breed standard and then how it measures up against the other dogs in the ring. I expect it will be a very close, very difficult and very challenging assignment, but one that I will treasure for the rest of my life.

Kim Thornton: Are there any restrictions on what/where/when you can judge once you’ve been invited to judge BIS?

Sari Tietjen: The only restrictions are that you cannot judge whatever you are assigned at Westminster anywhere in the United States four months prior to the show. Also, as BIS judge, you are completely sequestered. You cannot attend any parties, other than the official Westminster dinner, nor the show until just before you step into the main ring.

Kim Thornton: How many other times have you judged classes or groups at Westminster?

Sari Tietjen: I have been fortunate to have judged Westminster nine previous times: six were breed judging assignments and three were groups–the Toy Group in 1984, Non-Sporting in 1996 and Toy in 2008. To say that I am thrilled is an understatement. To say that I, who believe so much in tradition and everything Westminster represents, am honored does not do it justice. It means so much more than that to me, a child of everything good about the sport and the dogs we love so much.

Tietjen is approved to judge all Sporting, Toy, Hound and Non-Sporting breeds. She has been writing about dogs for more than 25 years and is working on her fifth book. No, we didn’t talk about PETA protesters or the state of dog breeding or the decline of the AKC empire, but it would be interesting someday to see if she–and the other breeder/exhibitors/judges I speak to monthly if not weekly–would address them. But that’s a topic for another day.

Of course, that enjoyment is always tinged with sadness over the state of our heritage breeds and the desire for change. Every breed — and Kim’s Cavaliers and my flatcoated retrievers are among the worst effected — has a breed-related health problem, or maybe several. Some breeds are flawed by design, their “breed standards” calling for an appearance that’s not compatible with normal canine activity (short faces causing breathing difficulties, long backs causing injuries that lead to paralysis, etc.). Other breeds look and act athletic and normal, but secret dangers lurk, such as the cancers that take wonderful dogs of many breeds in their most youthful, active years.

We know what caused these problems, and we know how to fix them.

For the dogs who are flawed by design, changes in the breed standards need to reverse the years of extreme selection for traits such as flat faces. And for all breeds, the closed gene pools systems of registrations that dictate mating within a breed only must be changed to allow for planned outcrosses to elminate health problems while continuing to preserve breed type.

The voices for these reforms are getting louder, and few are more constant in the call for change than Patrick Burns, a/k/a Terrierman. Patrick was given a copy of an independent veterinary-authored report commissioned by the RSPCA in the United Kingdom. The 76-page report explains how we got to this point, what the problems are, and possible solutions.

The report needs to be read by anyone who cares about the future of our heritage breeds. Check it out over on Terrierman.

I took over Jerry’s recliner at 6 sharp, with Bella at my side and Harper in my lap, only to discover that we had missed the Hound Group and were now on to Terriers. My least favorite Group, with apologies to Terrierman. As an art lover, I can appreciate their sculptural appearance–artificial though it may be–but our personalities just wouldn’t mesh. I think I could live with a Skye or a Sealyham, though. Maybe.

I call my friend Tamela to make fun of the Bedlington’s name: Ch. Velvety Angel Eyes. We discuss the fact that judge Peter Green has dismissed two dogs from the ring because their handlers used to work for him. Wouldn’t you know that ahead of time and send in a different handler? Maybe it’s against the rules to change handlers. Stupid rules, if that’s the case. What’s the point of winning your breed if you know your dog is going to be excused from the ring because he has the wrong handler? Maybe someone can clear this up for me.

Harper does not like the Border Terrier or the Wire Fox Terrier. She jumps off my lap each time, walks up to the TV screen and growls menacingly at them. She doesn’t care for the terrier mix-looking dog looking at himself in the PetCo ad, either. Great, my dog has the same prejudices I do. I wonder if she would growl at a Re, oh, never mind. Wrong blog.

Peter Green is a terrier man from way back–and funny. He walks down the line, quacking at all the dogs to elicit expression from them. “Well, he is a former handler,” David Frei explains. The Norwich barks at him. I think it ought to get extra points for that, and indeed it goes Group 3.

Although I miss sitting at the press table, I have to admit that I’m enjoying being at home, having Jerry bring me ice cream because there are dogs in my lap, and getting to hear the color commentary for once. The Wheaten has a breeder/owner/handler, Frei notes approvingly.

The Staffordshire Bull Terrier is a good-looking dog. I have a soft spot for them. One of my early moves as editor of Dog Fancy was to hire former AKC Gazette features editor Marion Lane to write a column about life with her new SBT puppy. We called it Raisin’ Nell. She’s a super writer and I was always entertained by her adventures with Nell.

The Pedigree Foundation has a wonderful series of ads promoting shelter adoptions. Most of us saw the first one during the Super Bowl–the Westminster of football games, as Frei likes to say–but they’ve added a couple more. “Tonight as we celebrate the best purebred dogs in the world, let’s not forget about the ones who aren’t so lucky,” the narrator says. “Remember Echo, Otis and Frankie.” They have a nice website with information on how to adopt, volunteer or donate. Dogs rule, indeed–and so do cats.

As we watch the Non-Sporting dogs, Frei says the AKC is considering reworking the Groups, adding more and moving some breeds around. It’s about time. I’ve been saying they should do that for years, but no doubt they didn’t want to look as if they were copying the Federation Cynologique Internationale. There should be a Nordic Group, they should move the Dalmatian to the Working Group, and the Toys should be renamed the Companion Group, with many of the Non-Sporting Dogs moved under that category. That’s just for starters.

The Schipperke looks like a cross between a hyena and a warthog, Jerry says. I assume he means in silhouette because they’re not unattractive. Actually, neither are hyenas and warthogs. Warthogs were our surprise favorite animal in Africa because of the cuteness factor. But I digress.

We’re watching the Herding Group now. I decide early on that I have to root for the Australian Shepherd because his name is Copyright. The Beardie bounces up and down for the judge. Here comes the poor German Shepherd. It horrifies me every time I see that sloping rear. They did not look like that 35 years ago. It horrifies me, too, that it has been 35 years since I was a kid and we had German Shepherds. Oh well.

Harper has lost interest in my lap and the show. She is rolling on the floor, clutching a toy to her chest and gnawing on its head. Twyla has taken her place in my lap, and Bella hasn’t moved. I was going to rant about the extra weight show dogs are required to carry to be competitive in the ring, but I can’t remember now what set me off about it, and I want to go back and watch the Hound Group. I think I’ve lost my chair, though.

Update: Always a bridesmaid, never a Best in Show. I’ve been watching my friend Susan’s Bloodhounds for years at this show. She’s come so close, winning the Breed and the Group several times. Her current bitch, Rita, went Group 3 tonight. In other Hound news, will the WKC never update the announcer’s script so he will quite saying that the Ibizan Hound and the Pharaoh Hound date back 3,500 and 4,400 years? DNA evidence says not quite.

We’ve been talking a lot lately about dogs being bred for function instead of winning in the show ring. But even when you want to breed for function, the work of some dog breeds has become an anachronism. None of us can test our Scottish Deerhounds on their ancestral quarry, the Highland Stag, a deer similar in size to an elk.

But there are many different performance events at which  breeders can test their hound’s instincts and abilities, and in Scottish Deerhounds there is one dog who excelled almost incomprehensibly at them all: Rory.

Rory’s full name was BII NFC DC Chartwell Silver Run Valevue SGRC, ORC, LCM 6, VC. He was bred and owned by Ellen Bonacarti of Chartwell Scottish Deerhounds, and Norma Sellers of Vale Vue.

And all those initials? From Ellen Bonacarti’s website:

[Rory was] the first AKC National Lure Coursing Champion in 1994; the 1995 ASFA Best in International Invitational; the first NOTRA Oval Race Champion Deerhound; the first LGRA Gazehound Racing Champion Deerhound and the first ASFA Lure Courser of Merit 4, Lure Courser of Merit 5 and Lure Courser of Merit 6 Deerhound. He was the #2 ASFA Deerhound in 1994, 1995 and 1996 and the #1 ASFA Deerhound in 1997 and 1998; he is also currently the #1 lifetime ASFA Deerhound with over 600 Bowen points (dogs defeated). Rory was the #1 LGRA Deerhound in 1999 and #4 ASFA Deerhound. Rory was also the #1 NOTRA Deerhound in 1994 and 1995, making him one of the rare hounds to have been #1 in three different venues.

In 2000, Rory repeated as the #1 LGRA Deerhound and earned the Deerhound Sporting Club’s “Fairchild Perpetual Award for Excellence in Racing.” He tied for 6th in the ASFA Top Ten, his 7th straight year in the Top Ten.

I loved this dog back when he was a youngster, and wanted to breed my bitch Rosie to him. But I was young and stupid, and was worried that both sides of that pedigree had some really bad tails — a fault I now couldn’t possibly care less about. And it’s too bad, too, because not only did Rory live past the age of 11, he was literally the runningest dog ever in our breed, as well as being a show champion — yes, he really was — and Rosie, herself a show champion, had two incredible running brothers and lived to be 13 and a half years old.

Yes, I do kick myself every day for being stoopid, stoopid, stoopid. What I wouldn’t give now to have bred those two hounds together.

Fortunately, other breeders weren’t such idiots, and Rory sired a few litters.

And today, one of his sons won the breed at Westminster, in something of an upset.

Congratulations to Ch. Gayleward’s Tiger Woods — who is 7 years old — and to his breeder and owner, Gayle Bontecou. And good luck in the Hound Group!

Congratulations also to Ch Altnamara’s Trial By Fire, owned by Linda and Ned Madden, for winning Best of Opposite Sex to Best of Breed, and to Diane Murray’s Ch Lindisfarne Coll Of Gayleward CD RA JC NAJ for winning the only Award of Merit given today.

And here’s to the day that no one has to make a post like this again, because all our conformation winners excel in the field, too.

[UPDATE:] Tiger won the Hound Group! Only the second deerhound since Ch. Fernhill’s Phantom in 1991! And the son of a great field dog!

Here’s a video of Ellen Bonacarti with Rory and a deerhound puppy, on a TV news “meet the breed” segment. She gives a pretty good overview of the breed:

Top photo of Rory at age 11, by Ellen Bonacarti. Bottom photo by Dan Gauss of Shot On Site photography. Both used with permission of Ellen Bonacarti.

The Livingstons are unusual even in the insular dog community, where husbands and wives often meet in the ring and children end up taking over the family business. Not only did the Livingston children choose the same profession, each has attained a measure of success.

Clint, Brian and Colette together are showing 25 dogs at Westminster, ranging from a Papillon to a Mastiff. Thomas describes them as growing up in the “eccentric milieu of dog shows.” Hmm. Now I guess I can say that I grew up in the eccentric milieu of horse shows. That sounds much more interesting than it actually was. A lot of hard work and waiting around and long rides in the truck or RV are what I remember most. Read the rest here.

Once again, I’ll miss the opportunity to attend The Dog Sale, an auction of dog art by Bonhams. It’s one of those things I’ve always wanted to attend. It’s always on my to-do list and it always gets knocked off by something else. But they were kind enough to send me a catalog so I could drool over the paintings, jewelry, antique dog collars and statuary that will be on offer tomorrow. The dog collars include at least one with several bells on it, which apparently were tres chic for Pugs some 130 years ago, according to dog art connoisseur and gallery owner William Secord, to whom I spoke a while back for an article on Pug art. Lots of spaniel items that I covet, from a hooked rug to a portrait of a black and tan Cavalier to, well, lots more. If you love dogs and art and happen to be in the NYC area, you might want to check it out.

One of the regular pre-Westminster events is a fund-raiser for the nonprofit Angel on a Leash therapy dog program. Attending this year were five former Westminster winners: Uno, James, Spice, J.R. and Rufus. It was a gathering of elite old-timers as estimable, dog-wise, as the first class of baseball Hall of Famers in 1936, wrote NYT reporter Richard Sandomir.

Angel on a Leash president/CEO David Frei was there, of course. He predicted that ticket sales to the show might be down on Monday because of the economy.

Frei did a lot of traveling last year with Uno, as Christie reported in an earlier interview with him. I talked to him a few months ago for a Westminster preview article that appeared in Dog World. He and Uno had quite a few entertaining experiences on the road, especially at the airport. Uno flies in the cabin with Frei and even has his own seat.

He’s got his own ticket like any other passenger, and when he travels with me the ticket says Uno Frei on it. Every once in a while, someone in security will say ‘Hey, that dog’s going on the plane; he’s supposed to be in a container.’ I say, ‘No, he’s not; he’s got a ticket.’ Recently the computer selected his ticket for additional screening. He was patted down and wanded in the security area. The TSA folks were amused by it and had fun with it, but they treated him with dignity and took his picture and had their pictures taken with him and took a copy of his ticket so they could show that they had searched him and made the world safe from terrorist Beagles.

Phew!

And that’s a shame, because this is surely one of the more interesting years to go. Not for the show itself — which I enjoy, always, and will enjoy on TV tonight — but for all the backstory, the problems with breeds and the fight to save them BOTH from the animal rights true believers who want all pets free of domesticated exploitation — i.e., dead – and from those in “the fancy” who won’t accept the need for change in closed gene pool breeding practices.  The animal-rights pet extinction forces we can do nothing about except fight with all our might. As for the other: Good, well-meaning people working to preserve our heritage breeds need to force the acceptance of sensible, scientifically based outcrosses to improve the health of some very unhealthy breeds, concurrent with changes in some breed standards that call for appearances that run counter to the healthy function of any dog.

It’s also a shame I wasn’t in Manhattan yesterday to see the change come to the Dog Writers Association of America. The DWAA was started at Westminster between the World Wars, by a handful of mostly men who covered dog shows for newspapers (yes, that once was a part of sports coverage for most big newspapers!). The DWAA, long a pleasant group to be part of (I’d been a member since the early ’80s), has in recent years become so nasty and divided that I just let my membership lapse. With the “coup” staged at the annual meeting by a slate of the writers I most admire, both as professionals and as people, I’ll be rejoining and looking forward to the future. (Kim mentioned them previously: Dr. Deb Eldredge, previously blogged about here, Susan McCullough and Liz Palika (a/k/a the hardest working woman in showbizdog-training, writing and reptile rescue!)

I’m also not in Florida, for Global Pet Expo.

I love this trade show. It’s huge, and everyone in the pet industry shows up. It’s the place to see everything and spot trends. And it’s just plain fun, although a lot more fun in San Diego (which I love) than in Orlando (which I hate).  I knew months ago I couldn’t go because originally my mother was scheduled to have her knee replaced on Friday. Of course, since then my father’s illness (we have a home hospice meeting today) has taken priority, and my mom’s surgery will be in June.

Our Dr. Marty Becker is on his way to Global Pet, by way of New York City and a “Good Morning America” appearance on Wednesday. This year, Dr. B will be naming a “Dr. Becker’s Best In Show” award to the top product of the trade show, first time ever.  As for reporting, we have that covered. Our DogCars.com editor, veteran journalist Keith Turner, will be filling in for me on the convention floor, with blog posts, pictures and (we hope we can figure this one out) a video podcast with Dr. Becker.  Mikkel Becker Shannon, one of our Pet Connection contributing editors (and Dr. Becker’s daughter) will also be contributing.

Finally, I’m not in Minnesota, where things are reportedly going pretty well with McKenzie. (No, I don’t have an image to go with THAT.) My brother said to me last night: “Doesn’t it bother you that your dog has a more interesting personal life than you do?” Um, well, it didn’t, but thanks for mentioning it! In any case, my girl should be home again in just a few days … and then we wait for puppies.

So where am I, actually? Home, and feeling a tad sorry for myself that I’m not somewhere more exciting. But on the other hand, I couldn’t and wouldn’t choose to be anywhere except where my dad and the rest of my family need me right now. So this week, I’m coping on the home front … and thinking of where I would be if I were not here.

Nope, Westminster is over, and while our buddy David Frei and Uno the Westminster-winning beagle make the rounds of the morning talk shows, I’m thinking of that other beauty pageant, the presidential primary races.

My thought for the morning: What do the pet-food recall and Barak Obama have in common?

Give up?

The Internet.

A couple decades ago, without the ability of veterinarians across the country to compare notes on sick, dying and dead pets and realize that something really seriously wrong was happening everywhere at once, we pet lovers would have never known that tainted ingredients — poison — had entered the food supply. And once the nation’s veterinarians made the connection last spring, the Internet drove the story. Pet-lovers responded with a grass-roots efforts to let their elected representatives know that the safety of food — ours and our pets — was something we cared about. The story played out through the news cycles for weeks, Congress held hearings, the FDA felt the heat and the whole thing opened the door for more coverage of tainted imported products — and more heat on the agencies that are supposed to protect us.

The ability of peer-to-peer computer networks to make connections truly did make a difference, even if the reforms we’ve seen so far are not enough, not done, not yet.

OK, and so now Barack Obama. We work to be non-partisan here on the Pet Connection — heck, we praise and criticize everyone who deserves either — but I can’t say the same about our blog-pal the Terrierman, who has been writing about Obama for weeks now. This morning’s post on what went wrong with Hillary Clinton — or what has been wrong all along, really —  was a very good read, but the 10th point on his list really got my attention:

Hillary wrote off a lot of America. Hillary’s decided that only a few states and a few people mattered — Fat cat donors, and folks living in Iowa, New Hampshire, and the big states of New York, and California. The rest of us were fodder and she let us know it. It was all going to be over on Super Tuesday. The little states, the late states, and the “fly over” states were not amused, and neither were the folks who give $5, $20 or $50 to a candidate. We were reminded, once again, that Hillary Clinton believes the elite and the chosen are who are really important, and not those who are least among us. Hillary was more interested in cultivating the Super Delegates than she was in cultivating the grass roots. [... ] Hillary really does think we are all idiots.

Obama’s donors number nearly half a million, ordinary people giving $5, $10, $100. It has been written that one of the reasons Clinton had to loan her own money to her campaign was that she had gone first and foremost to the “important” people who wrote her a check for the maximum amount allowed by law, so she couldn’t get more money from them. Obama, on the other hand, could tap the same “donor base” (read: real people, not the usual suspects representing special interests) again and again. And sometimes he didn’t even have to reach out: So many real people were trying to give him those modest amounts that his servers had to shut down from time to time and take a deep breath.

Now, as I said above, this isn’t really about Obama, but rather about a sea change in the ability to  reach people and hear from people  – real people, not the “idiot consumer masses” many corporations and politicians have believed us to be and treated us like.

Listen up you: Be honest with us. Be open with us. Ask for our input and our help. Don’t patronize us. We’re not idiots, any of us, no matter where we live, where we worship (or don’t), what we do for a living and how we spend our leisure time. We’re people, individuals, not “home-schooling Christians,” “blue-state latte drinkers,” “NASCAR dads,” etc., etc., etc. Heck, some of us vote liberal and own guns. We’re so very sorry if that messes with the neat little demographic boxes you want to push us into so you can treat us like an object to support your ambitions.

The fact that we’re people, not demographics, is why some of us can enjoy the Westminster Kennel Club dog show and still rescue and foster pets. Because life is not as black-and-white as some believe — it’s about shades of gray. Or maybe, about a man with a Kansan mom, a Kenyan dad who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii and has the middle name that any consultant would have sworn was as deadly as last spring’s pet food.

As they rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic embarassment of the Clinton campaign, somebody ought to be paying attention. We’re not “demographics”; we’re people.  Miss that point? Well, here’s your hat, there’s the door. The “good ol’ days” are over, and thank heavens for that.

The poodles aren’t winning any more at Westminster.  As Uno the everyman beagle would say, “Ahhhhhhh-rooooooooooooo.”

Judge Sari Tietjen gave the Group to the Toy Poodle, so it and the Standard will be competing in Best in Show. It’s looking bad for Uno, up against two foofy dogs. (And no, I’m not dissing Poodles; I love them, fancy show cuts and all.) The Cavalier didn’t make the cut, good news for those of us who worry that the breed’s stratospheric rise in popularity will make it even more of a target for puppy millers and backyard breeders.