Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff. Lauren vogebam here at the very first Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show in eight seventy seven, held in an open air building in New York City that P. T. Barnum built for his circus, Somewhere around one thousand, five hundred canines were displayed for what The New York Times declared a new fashionable amusement among members of the city's high society.
The Times announced in advance of the show on March of that year, the attendance promises to be very select. That hoity toity image for the world's most famous dog show may, for some lingered nearly a century and a half later bolstered by perfectly quite poodles performing for tuxedo judges, but the hundred and forty five running of the Westminster Show, which begins on June eleven, is a good bit more than a finally brushed out coat on a careful controlled
pure bred. Certainly meticulously bred dogs, often outrageously groomed, are still the show's centerpiece. Beyond that, though, Westminster is an unabashed lovin for all dogs from the prancing show dog performing for a worldwide audience to that rescue mutt taking up residents on your living room sofa. For the article
this episode is based on How's to Work. Spoke with Gayl Miller Bischer, the director of Communications for the Westminster Connel Club, the world's oldest group dedicated to the sport of showing pure bred dogs. She said, Westminster is a celebration of dogs, and it's a celebration of companionship, and
that's something that we have always strived to promote. If you ever come to the dog show, where one of the few benched shows still in existence, and that just means that all the dogs have to stay at the show all day. They're categorized alphabetically, so if you want to see all the Afghans, they're all together in one area. All the beagles are together. The whole purpose of that is because we are a public education event. It's about educating the public and making sure they learn about the
breed before you bring a dog into your home. And as we mentioned that show has been around for a while. The Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show is the second longest continuously held sporting event in America, behind only the Kentucky Derby, which started in eighteen seventy five. The Westminster show was around before the light bulb, which debuted in eighteen seventy nine, and the first gasoline powered automobile from eighteen eighty five.
It also predates both the invention of the game of basketball eighteen ninety one and the first World Series nineteen o three. But the Westminster Show, as long running as it is, will be vastly different this year due to the remnants of the coronavirus pandemic. For the first time and it's a hundred and forty five year history, the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show will not be held in
Manhattan in twenty one. Because of the early planning needed to put on a show of this size and the uncertainty of where the world would be pandemic wise, organizers months ago opted to move the show twenty five miles or forty kilometers north of the city to Terrytown, New York. What's more, the show will be without any human spectators. Westminster. The show has been through a lot in the century
plus of its existence. It was shortened to two days during World War Two, and in ninety six because of a tug boat strike in the city. The show was completed in just one day. Last February, just before COVID struck, the Westminster Conel Club held its hundredth straight show at
the Madison Square Garden Venue. Organizers discussed all sorts of scenarios for the hundred forty showing, delay it until fall online, only cancel it for the first time ever, moving it north to the Lyndhurst Estate, a National Trust historic site on the Hudson River, in a control setting that would still allow for television coverage one the day. It's the first time, too, that the competition will be held in
the month of June in non pandemic times. The show normally takes place over a week one, it's an elongated weekend and some two thousand, five hundred dogs are entered in the show this year. Festivities begin Friday, June eleven with a fan favorite, the Master's Agility Championship, which is open to all dogs, including all American a k A. Non purebred types. Some three fifty dogs will tackle an obstacle course in the timed event. Mixed breed dogs are
also welcome at the Master's Obedience Championship. The Westminster Kennel Club Dog show, though, is the judging of two hundred nine breeds and several different varieties of certain breeds in seven distinct groups. Hound, toy, non sporting, sporting, hurting, working, and terrier. Dogs are judged by how closely they conform to their breeds standards, which are the features that the American Kennel Club or a KC defines as ideal features
for that breed. The standards cover how the dogs should look, move and their temperament. Take, for example, a long haired docks and a one of the three varieties of the docks and breed, including smooth and wire haired in the hound group. To be judged well, a long haired ducks and must meet appearance criteria such as, to quote the a k C, the trunk is long and fully muscled when viewed in profile, the back lies and the straightest possible line between the withers and the short very slightly
arched loin. Short hair on the ear is not desirable to profuse. A coat which masks type equally, long hair of the whole body, a curly coat, or a pronounced parting on the back are faults. Movement is based on
criteria such as quote viewed from the front. The legs do not move in exact parallel planes, but incline slightly inward, and there are requirements for temperament as well, such as the docks in is clever, lively and courageous to the point of rashness, persevering in above and below ground work with all the senses well developed. Any display of shyness is a serious fault. Each dog is judged first among others in the breed uh Docksins, against Docksins, and then
against members of its group. The hound group includes thirty five breeds and varieties from Afghans to Docksins, two Wimmen's. If judged best of breed, and then best of group, the dog competes against the winner of the six other groups for Best in Show, Westminster's top prize, and that's announced the final night. In the hundred and forty four years of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, a dog from the Terrier group has one Best in Show a
record forty seven times. The wire fox terrier has won fifteen Best in Show awards, the most by any breed, but the show is clearly not a popularity contest. The most popular dog in America, according to The A k C is the Labrador Retriever, a member of the Sporting group, but a lab has never won Best in Show at Westminster. Today's episode is based on the article Westminster Dog Show celebrates a hundred and forty five years, but one will be different on House to haworks dot com, written by
John Donovan. Brain Stuff is production of by Heart Radio in partnership with hows tofworks dot Com and it is produced by Tyler Clay. Four more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.