Snow doesn't worry organizers, dog fanciers
Westminster show will go on despite record-breaking snow
 Mary Altaffer / AP A Chihuahua named Mouse sits on an English Mastiff named Sherman while their owner checks in at the Hotel Pennsylvania on Sunday in New York. Sherman will be competing in the 130th Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show which begins Monday at New York's Madison Square Garden. Competitors and their handlers continued to check in Sunday despite a record-breaking storm. |
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NEW YORK - Young and spry, Lashes trotted out the hotel door, headed toward Madison Square Garden — and plopped right into a snowdrift.
Suddenly, the little Chinese Shar-Pei from Louisiana was over her head.
“She’s never seen snow before,” owner Lisa Myers said Sunday. “She’s not too fond of it.”
A day before America’s most prestigious dog show started, Westminster took on a different feel because of the record-setting storm. Central Park, where a lot of contestants like to take a last-minute walk, was blanketed with 2 feet of snow.
Yet even with the area’s three major airports shut and driving treacherous, a lot of this year’s 2,622 entries already made it to town.
About 1,100 dogs stay at the Hotel Pennsylvania across the street from the Garden, and about 850 of their owners, breeders and handlers had checked in by mid-afternoon.
“They seem to like the snow,” hotel representative Jerry Grymek said. “I saw a couple of St. Bernards run right into it. You know how people make snow angels? They were making snow dogs.”
Show folks and dog fanciers didn’t seem too worried.
“I don’t think it’s going to affect us that much,” said David Frei, head of Westminster publicity and USA Network analyst. “The people who come to this show, they find a way.”
Besides, he said, the 1969 blizzard created even more havoc. That was the year the esteemed Walter Goodman was seen carrying his prize Skye terrier from the Garden while his mother trudged behind.
Goodman won Best in Show the next night, and is now a Westminster Kennel Club member. And the story has become part of dog show lore.
In a two-day event filled with underdogs from 165 breeds and varieties, there clearly were a few favorites.
There’s a Dandie Dinmont terrier named Fineus Fogg that’s co-owned by Bill Cosby and led by expert handler Bill McFadden. A wobbly Pekingese called Jeffrey that charmed the sellout crowd last year is back, and the Alaskan malamute that won the AKC/Eukanuba last month is here.
So is the appropriately named Ice, handled by Rick Chashoudian, a well-respected judge who guided a Lakeland terrier to the Best in Show title in 1976.
Then again, they could all be chasing the same dog — Coco, a Norfolk terrier.
Coco came close to winning at Westminster the previous two years, and then was retired. But when James Reynolds was picked to be this year’s Best in Show judge — and dog people know he really likes Coco — there was a good chance she’d come back for another try at 7½ years old.
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A champion from another world — Debbye Turner, Miss America 1990 and a veterinarian — will join Frei and Jill Rappaport on the USA Network telecast, which draws about 3 million viewers a night.
“People like to tune in to Westminster for the pageantry and the drama,” Turner said. “I don’t imagine spouting any deep medical theories.”
A few days ago, Turner was excitedly talking to the Miss America who crowned her — Gretchen Carlson, a former CBS colleague on “The Early Show.”
“The pageantry of the whole event — the drama, the soap opera, the politics, backstage — I think I’m going to be able to relate,” she said. “I know it very well.”
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