As a kid growing up in the woods and farms of Leroy Township, Ohio, the only thing I knew about breeding dogs was that if you wanted a beagle, you went to old Mike Evanich and asked him when Molly would be delivering her next litter.

Molly’s progeny were the best hunting dogs around, and Old Mike charged what he figured was top dollar for them — five bucks. That may not sound like much, but in those days, that was 50 draft beers at the Leroy Tavern, where Old Mike held office hours six days a week.

Besides, no one would pay more for a dog, most people getting their pets for free from anyone they knew who had just come into a litter of mongrels and mutts. Spaying and neutering were all but unknown in those days, and, as few people kept their dogs tied up when outdoors, there was no shortage of pups.

In that neck of the woods, the only papers any dog ever had were the ones it was trained on. Pedigrees were for city folks.

That didn’t mean we weren’t interested in dog shows. Had the Westminster Kennel Club’s annual show been on one of the three static-soaked black-and-white TV channels, we’d have pulled up our tray tables, popped some Swanson’s TV dinners in the oven, and made a night of it.

We would have disparaged the pampered pets and the people who invest large amounts of time and money into grooming them into showpieces with names like Samantha Codpiece-Finsterman on the Green. And we would have watched keenly when the beagles came out, eager to see how our hound, Duke, stacked up against the pretty-boy show dogs.

We would have concluded our dog was better, even if he had a notch out of his ear and tended to emit toxic aromas when he basked in front of the fire.

FREE VIDEO Best in show Feb. 14: David Frei, host of USA Network’s coverage of the Westminster Dog Show, introduces "Today" host Matt Lauer to some interesting new breeds and other top contenders for the award of best in show. Today show

We also would have had enormous fun laughing at the poofy ’dos on the French poodles, the wrinkles on the shar peis, and the prissy attitudes of the Pekes. Anybody who’d get a dog like that was the sort who also drank wine from bottles stopped by pretentious corks rather than practical screw-tops. Definitely not cut out for Leroy Township.

Our attitudes would have changed to awe when the Great Danes and mastiffs and St. Bernard’s and other mega-canines thundered around the ring. Now here were beasts whose owners you envied. They were big and macho and sometimes scary, the SUVs of the dog world, with the big downside being the cost of keeping them in kibbles. Plus, dogs like that you had to buy, and for more than the price of 50 P.O.C. (The Pride of Cleveland) drafts. Out of the question in our blue-collar world.

But no matter what we concluded, we’d have enjoyed the heck out of the show.

I know all of this because once the Westminster show did become available on USA Network, I did all of the above, and so did my parents back in Ohio. I even talked my editor back at The Record of Hackensack, N.J. to let me cover it two or three times.

My kids watched, always with an eye to which breed they would get when they finally wore down their parents’ aversion to getting a dog. Even my wife, who insists she doesn’t even like dogs, didn’t miss a breed, including the one we eventually got (A toy fox terrier, which, by the way, isn’t really a toy, as there is no on-off switch; it runs full-speed pretty much full-time).

I don’t know that anyone knows what it is about dogs and people that makes them so fascinating to each other. Certainly, there’s a symbiotic partnership at work, the dog providing unstinting love and devotion, along with an assortment of cute tricks, and the people providing pretty much the same thing with a free dinner and crunchy snacks thrown in.

The partnership is ancient, going back to our hunter-gatherer days long before the discovery of agriculture. When we settled into cities, we took our dogs with us, even then breeding them for different tasks, from hunting to herding to snuggling in a rich person’s lap and looking pretty.

I’m willing to wager the competition to have the best dog goes way back, too. It’s enough to say that the Westminster Kennel Club dog show is America’s second-oldest annual sporting event; only the Kentucky Derby predates it.

I’m still a little skeptical of spending large amounts of money for a dog and I’m more than a bit befuddled by the incredible number of breeds. All we ever wanted in a dog was the ability to kick up a rabbit, bark at strangers and treat us like the most important persons in the world.

But I remain addicted to the dog show, and so does my family. I even know which dog I want to see in action: a Neopolitan mastiff. Check them out on the Net. Ugliest drool factory you’ve ever seen.

Cool.