Fufus & Fidos - At the Westminster Dog Show - a report from the annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show

National Review, March 20, 2000 by Jonah Goldberg

New York City

Suddenly, John was the favorite to win. "Johnny" could switch from taciturn to playful in an instant, but he was-above all things-a fierce competitor, a purebred warrior like his father and grandfather before him. Only months earlier, he'd been written off as a long shot whose few wins were undeserved, establishment-bucking flukes. Now all that stood between him and the brass ring was the "son": the pedigreed scion of bluebloods dripping with the sense of entitlement that comes with the blessing of the establishment. The son had never suffered, never sacrificed. His victories came easily. Throughout 1999, the pundits had pegged him as the obvious favorite. Still, Johnny, the outsider, had an uncanny appeal. "There's just something about Johnny that everybody loves. I can't explain it," said one experienced observer.

John McCain versus George W. Bush? A good guess. But while other journalists were eating Krispy Kremes on the Straight Talk Express, I was wading deep into the World Series of doggiedom, the 124th annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show held at Madison Square Garden. This is the second-oldest annual "sporting event" in America, only one year younger than the Kentucky Derby. This contest was supposed to be between "Johnny," a.k.a. Hi-Tech Johnny J of Boxerton, and "Treson," a.k.a. Lake Cove That's My Boy. Hi-Tech Johnny is a boxer, and Treson is a standard poodle. More accurately, he is the poodle-the "winningest dog of all time of any breed," according to Sports Illustrated.

One hopes the analogy to presidential politics will not hold, since both dogs were bested by a third contender in a stunning upset. The winner, the Al Gore of the race, was a springer spaniel appropriately named "Shameless"-which is especially ironic, because many of the dogs seem so embarrassed to be here in the first place.

As you walk through the backstage grooming area, you see maybe a hundred dogs standing on what appear to be small ironing boards. The longer-haired breeds-Pekinese, Shih Tzus, sheepdogs, etc.-are so covered in special dog hair-rollers that, at first glance, the beasts appear to be under attack by bright blue grasshoppers. One bearded collie being assaulted by a hairdryer has his bangs bundled into a rhino horn of fur; he looks up at me with an expression of intense humiliation. A caged German shepherd is in even worse straits: "Please," his eyes plead, "kill me now."

It's not an easy life, and one would forgive the pups for mounting an insurrection. But the dogs are invariably better behaved than the humans at the show. The event is crowded, loud, and thoroughly disorienting. There is a great deal of commerce: Dog-food cookbooks, dog-motif jewelry ("The Fine Arf Collection"), and even canine self- help manuals ("When Pets Come Between Partners") are hawked at stalls lining every wall. In the area where the dogs are put on display, thousands of people push, poke, shove, and shriek. In this tense, almost gladiatorial locker-room atmosphere, owners and groomers can get pretty testy.

But-among the canines, at least-there's no biting, and no dogfights. Sure, there is the occasional excretory "accident," but most dogs wait politely in long lines with their owners to use one of the sandboxes designated for that sort of business. In fact, to a dog-lover like me, it is precisely the un-canine nature of the event that is so disconcerting. Walking amidst these almost Prozac-calm descendants of wolves, one starts to worry; the dogs are almost too well behaved. Is that golden retriever with the ribbons in his hair suffering from what the Marxists would call "false consciousness"? Or is he just biding his time, waiting for the right moment to spark the mutiny? "Canines! Revolution! Throw off your leashes!" Perhaps not. But there is something odd about 2,600 dogs crammed into a room over two days, without a single recorded instance of a chewed shoe or nipped ankle. Indeed, this passivity reinforces the misgivings many dog-lovers have about the world of dog shows. Westminster rates dogs according to American Kennel Club guidelines, which judge appearance, not behavior; a champion dog is simply the one that best conforms to the picture in the guidebook. In other words, the "best" Labrador retriever at Westminster may not even know how to swim, let alone retrieve, but his ears will be the right distance from his nose. This is why, for example, Border-collie breeders fought tooth and nail against having their dogs recognized by the AKC. From the day they're born, Border- collie puppies herd anything that moves-tennis balls, ducks, humans. Now, science has proven that a great deal of dog behavior is genetic. Pointers, for example, don't necessarily need to be taught to point. (This fact of science is unappealing to liberal dog-lovers; when I made this point in another magazine, dozens of irate readers wrote in to accuse me of being an advocate of eugenics.)

Many Border-collie breeders feared, and fear, that breeding their dogs according to a standard derived solely from appearance instead of behavior could very easily result in dogs that look great but are useless for herding. Border collies remain the unparalleled champions in the burgeoning world of agility trials, contests that measure a dog's intelligence and athletic ability; breeding for looks might attenuate the breed's natural gifts.