by Kim Kavin
After that, all that remained was the matter of offloading a pair of female Havanese. One of the buyers took some persuading; as bidding stalled and Hughes waited on her to decide whether to add to the tally, she asked for the dog to be spun around so she could evaluate her, much like a judge at a dog show. The woman ended up buying, much like a show judge might have awarded a ribbon upon careful consideration. Hughes had managed to shake $650 out of the attendees for those last two dogs, and then he pronounced the day’s auction over, some seven hours after it had started and run clear through without a break.
The total day’s take for the dogs turned out to be just over $110,000, and maybe thirty people were left in the barn, including the auction employees, when Hughes put down the microphone near a quarter past five. The place looked like an amusement park at the end of a frenzied day: sticky soda cans crushed and dropped wherever they fell, dirty plates of half-eaten sandwiches left on the bleachers, empty bags of chips that missed the garbage cans and landed on the floor. The staffers at the tables near the concession room had long ago packed up and gone home, and the barking from the adjacent room had gradually quieted as buyers collected their purchases and loaded them into the vehicles outside.
It had stopped raining a few hours earlier, but drivers still had to dodge the mud puddles in the dirt driveway to keep their tires from spinning as they pulled out and headed for home. One of the last vehicles to leave was a truck pulling a box trailer, one without any windows or ventilation, painted black on all sides with the logo and telephone number for a local heating and cooling company.
If anybody passed that truck driving northbound on Highway 86 out of Wheaton, they would’ve had no clue that there might be a dozen or more dogs inside. Yes, the dogs’ offspring might find their way into homes all around the world in the years to come, but even if they’d been barking their brains out on that night, nobody was around anymore to hear them.
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*Petland, whose US stores regularly sell purebred and popular hybrid puppies such as Goldendoodles, also has stores today in Canada, Japan, South Africa, China, Mexico, Brazil, and El Salvador. In the United States, PetSmart and Petco have more locations than Petland, but they generally do not sell dogs from breeders. Some US PetSmart and Petco locations do allow rescue organizations to offer homeless dogs for sale inside their stores.
CHAPTER TWO
LUXURY PACKAGING
“If you can build a business up big enough, it’s respectable.”
—Will Rogers
Most of the people filtering into the cheap seats just after dinnertime on February 10, 2014, were wearing thick boots, wool coats, and warm scarves. It was the snowy season in New York City, and wind gusts whipping up Seventh Avenue toward Madison Square Garden left cheeks as red as if given a stinging slap. The singles and couples alike looked relieved as they stuffed their gloves and hats into their pockets and settled into sections numbering well into the 400s, finding their places amid the twenty thousand or so seats in the massive sports arena. It was a Monday night with schools open the next morning, which meant few of the adults had children in tow. These spectators looked no different than if they were about to see a concert or a hockey game, except that some of them carried inch-thick, purple, faux leather programs—388-page books, really—featuring a cover image of Sensation, the Pointer in hunting stance who graces the Westminster Kennel Club logo.
Sure, the programs were a splurge at $20 apiece, but they were still a fraction of the $70 or so per seat these folks had paid to be able to watch the world’s most prestigious dog show without binoculars. And really, in a place where it costs $11 for a hot pretzel and a soda at one of the concession stands along the concourse, $20 starts to seem like, well, a bargain for a keepsake, especially one with gold lettering on the cover, full-page ads that look professionally Photoshopped, and a section about how to hire personal security guards for dogs through the Madison Square Garden staff.
Because they’d arrived early, these fans could watch the cameras being set up for the first of two televised nights at the 138th Annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. Westminster isn’t the biggest conformation dog show on the planet, but it’s arguably the best known, the Rolls-Royce brand among similar shows like Crufts in the United Kingdom and the FCI World Dog Show held in rotating countries around the globe. The total field of competition for this year’s show was 2,845 dogs of 187 breeds and varieties, a spectacle that is a dramatic marketing evolution from Westminster’s first show, before the turn of the twentieth century, when only thirty-five breeds appeared (and a portion of proceeds were donated to the ASPCA, to help find homes for strays).
The coveted best in show title at Westminster wouldn’t be awarded until the next night, after all seven group winners had been selected in two nights of televised programming, but the first of those group judging rounds was scheduled to start inside of an hour. Backstage, groomers and handlers were primping and priming the winners from the earlier rounds of cuts.
It was serious business, preparing the stage for the whittling of the remaining dogs to just seven finalists, one group at a time. Men wearing tuxedoes and worried expressions took a long, last look around the ring, whose green carpeting served as a visual substitute for grass. They hiked up their black dress pants by the knees as they squatted to smooth the edges of the royal purple carpet that marked the entrance, and they considered the angles of the flower arrangements that were barely visible to many people inside the arena, but that seemed strategically located to create the impression of a natural garden setting for the TV audience. Everything, including the imposingly large men working as security around the roped-off seats on the floor, appeared to be in place as the clock ticked toward the prime-time television hours.
Looking out over the preshow scene was sixty-four-year-old David Frei, who describes himself as having spent thirty-five years owning, breeding, and showing Afghan Hounds, and who has been the voice of Westminster on television since 1990. He smoothed his hair and chitchatted with his co-host, thirty-seven-year-old Erica Hill, as they organized their notes and prepared to exchange witty banter before a television viewership of millions. Occasionally, they’d share a chuckle, a glancing touch, and a smile, perhaps thinking about the scope of what they were about to do or the international fame this event allowed them to enjoy. The dogs registered for this year’s show included 127 from beyond America’s borders, with fans back home in Canada, Mexico, Japan, Australia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Finland, Italy, Norway, Slovenia, Thailand, and the United Kingdom. The crowd slowly filling Madison Square Garden may have seemed big, but it was nothing compared to the real audience this show is organized to reach, with Frei and Hill spreading its message about purebred dogs everywhere a television set can be tuned in via satellite throughout the civilized world.
The people with partitioned-off floor seats made their way inside closer to start time, looking resplendent as they entered the arena in their tuxedoes and full-length gowns. Women were dazzling in drop earrings, sequined fabrics, and sparkling necklaces, and even the few men dressed casually looked like models whose pressed khakis and leather loafers were fresh from the pages of Vogue. They were positively aglow for this, their club’s biggest week of the year, and some had invested thousands upon thousands of dollars, not to mention years or decades of their lives, in the business of dogs to earn their seats front and center. A few had arrived in limousines from Manhattan’s toniest neighborhoods; others had flown first class from Europe and beyond. At least one attendee was known for bringing his private Gulfstream jet from South America, perhaps enjoying the same classical music now echoing throughout the rafters of Madison Square Garden in a rare moment of calm before the Jumbotron and Purina Pro Plan dog food ads flickered to life.
The folks in the cheap seats tried to frame their cellphone selfies with the wealthy in the background, much like cruise ship passengers who find themselves in view of superyachts on the docks of Caribbean islands lik
e St. Thomas. The lucky ones had seats that let them photograph the show ring with the AKC banner hanging over it, proving that Westminster was an officially sanctioned event. Facebook posts no doubt screamed, “I’m at Westminster!” and people handed phones back and forth, ecstatic to show off their good fortune of sitting close enough to see.
Anyone still in his chair rose to his feet as a US Army color guard marched stoically into the ring, followed by a Frankie Valli impersonator and the cast from the Tony Award–winning Broadway musical Jersey Boys, who had prepared a rousing rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” There was a hiccup in the television timing—the red lights didn’t indicate that the live broadcast had started until about two minutes after the crowd had gotten up—and everyone in the arena chuckled as the announcer called out, solely for the benefit of viewers at home, “Please rise for the singing of our national anthem.” Even despite the lighthearted moment, hands were placed over hearts, caps were removed from heads, and due respect was shown as the event got under way.
Then the first of the snouts and tails began to peek out from backstage, and murmurs and whispers blossomed into full-throated cheers, even up in the nosebleed sections. Michael LaFave, a breeder himself, took to the arena’s microphone as he has since 2001. His face isn’t nearly as well known as Frei’s to viewers at home, but his voice certainly is. He eased forward and said the words the crowd had been waiting to hear since last year, in his deepest, most silky-rich tone: “May we have the Hound group in the ring, please.”
He might as well have been announcing the entrance of Patrick Ewing or another New York Knicks Hall-of-Famer. Row after row of grown adults jumped and applauded. Almost every face in Madison Square Garden that night was white, and quite a few of them now turned crimson, absolutely flush with excitement. They clapped and hooted with their hands over their heads as if cheering the start of a World Cup match. They hollered for several minutes straight, all because thirty-one leashed dogs had sauntered into the building.
Viewers at home may have heard all this, but they didn’t see any of the preshow buildup; the live feed instead was on a shot of the Empire State Building alight and awash in Westminster’s colors of purple and gold, the same colored lights used to honor no less than Queen Elizabeth II on Golden Jubilee Day. Then the camera cut to Hill, who introduced Frei by saying, with all seriousness, “This is, in many ways, an Olympic event.” The hashtag #wkcdogshow appeared in the corner of the screen, encouraging people to take to social media just as they might during the Academy Awards. Then viewers were taken backstage to meet a Portuguese Podengo, which, along with the Rat Terrier and Chinook, was making its debut as a new breed in the show. The camera lingered on the Podengo for a few minutes, much as it might while showing off a concept design from Porsche or Ferrari at an international car show. The Podengo was indeed a nice new option for buyers, soon to become available from dog dealers worldwide.
Back in the main ring, judge Douglas Johnson and his bowtie were making their presence known, ensuring that the dogs were lined up alphabetically to match their listings in the program—similar to the alphabetical arrangement used for the auction at the barn back in Missouri. At home, viewers heard Frei call dog number 1, the Afghan Hound, by her name, which was Rachel, but at Madison Square Garden, no dog would be called anything but a number, also the same as in the auction barn. For judging purposes, she was Afghan Hound number 7, one of nearly two dozen who had been judged earlier in the day during the first round of cuts. And while Frei told viewers at home a bit about her owners to make her seem more everyday—like a dog they, too, could someday own—the judge at Madison Square Garden cared only about her appearance. For the purposes of demonstration in the ring, the Afghan Hound might as well have been on the auction house’s folding table. The identical image of her standing there being evaluated by her looks, save the glitterati all around, was uncanny.
For the benefit of viewers, Frei and Hill would continue chatting throughout the Hound Group judging, telling the home audience again and again that these dogs were akin to royalty, of historic significance, the real stuff of kings and queens. Their pace was slower than an auctioneer’s, but they were selling their hearts out just the same, bragging about each dog’s value in terms of heritage and legacy. They, along with LaFave, repeated marketing buzzwords, dates, and phrases that implied tradition and significance an average of once every few minutes for the television viewers. Coonhounds date from the era of America’s first president, George Washington, Frei said as American English Coonhound number 6 took his turn at the podium. The fifteen-inch Beagle (distinct from the thirteen-inch variety) was introduced to the crowd as number 28, but on television she was revealed to be the grandniece of Uno, the 2008 best in show winner, prompting Hill to quip, “That’s a good bloodline to be a part of.”
Hill then asked Frei how common it was to see descendants of former winners in the show. “A dog show’s purpose is to identify superior stock,” he answered, adding, “Yes, a dog wins here, it’s the sincerest form of flattery, breeding to that dog.”
In other words, the show being put on display for the public may have been entertaining, but the real show going on tonight was about the business of breeding, even if few of the fans ever noticed.
Back in the stands, unable to hear any of this chitchat, were more than a few of those fans—many of whom, by now, had been given enough time to chug their first beers. When Bassett Hound number 7 trotted out, a middle-aged man in a black sweatshirt and blue jeans stood up and screamed as if LeBron James had just hit a three-point shot from deep in the backcourt. “Beautiful!” another guy hollered. “That’s a good-looking dog!” a woman shouted. “Oh, look at that Beagle!” a woman breathlessly gushed. If they could have, they would have howled. The pack instinct would get only stronger as the night wore on.
Quite a few of the people cheering, along with many of the seriously invested people down in front, likely would have been disgusted by the scene at the auction house in Missouri. Yet here, under the arena lights with the $20 programs and household-name television personalities, they had no qualms at all about what was happening. The reason is simple: this dog show—which dates from 1877, the same year the railroad and steamship tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt died—allows breeders to do business in the style of the Old Money class. They have long been savvier than the purebred owners who spend their days breeding dogs on struggling family farms and going to auction houses when they can’t make ends meet. Like the first of today’s so-called reality television celebrities, the people in the tuxedos and gowns figured out decades ago that, instead of banning the cameras, it was better to invite them inside and control them, to turn a breeders’ event into a glimpse at the dogs of high society. They also intuitively discerned that it was better to have the money for the resulting puppies change hands away from the public eye, so the process of selling seemed far more civilized. Indeed, viewers at home wouldn’t hear Frei or Hill utter a single word about the cash value of the dogs on display, but really, the only difference between the announcers and the auctioneer Bob Hughes was that they were helping to set the top, and not the bottom, of the dog market.
Judging by the B-roll footage mixed in with the live broadcast that night, the top of the market was a great place for a dog to be. Viewers at home saw a flashback segment of past Westminster winners dining at Sardi’s in Manhattan like Broadway celebrities, sitting on the famous sofas of the Today show like movie stars, and hanging out with Donald Trump like fellow billionaires. One half-century-old highlight reel showed the Whippet who won Westminster in 1964 spliced with footage of the Beatles arriving in America that same year, equating John, Paul, George, Ringo, and Courtenay Fleetfoot of Pennyworth as cultural juggernauts, all.
“We used to breed dogs for a reason, to do a job for us,” Frei told viewers on that first night of judging. “Now, they’re really bred for companionship and to be part of our family.”
Meaning, of course, that everybody should
go out and buy one—and judging by the crowd response to the Hound group, the market was going to be quite good this year for Long-Haired Dachshunds. Number 26 drove the spectators to their feet in a chorus of cheers. “Baaaassseeeeeett!” the increasingly drunken guy in the black sweatshirt and blue jeans bellowed every time there was a lull. Entire sections of fans went crazy when Bloodhound number 5 was caught stretching on the Jumbotron, just like dogs do every day in bedrooms and back yards around the world. The camera happened to be on this particular dog who yawned, and so the fans went wild.
Frei tried to put the yawning dog into context for the television audience at home, doing linguistic backflips to keep the magic alive and ensure that the Bloodhound didn’t seem too, well, pedestrian.
“You always hope your dog has its moment of divine inspiration when the judge is looking at you,” he said before ultimately having to admit reality. “But they’re dogs.”
Just how much are the Westminster dogs worth? A good person to ask is Linda Blackie, because she recently had to make the case of their enduring value to a jury.
Blackie didn’t have a Standard Poodle listed in the show program at Westminster in 2014, but as the owner of Whisperwind Kennels in Altoona, Pennsylvania, she knew the scene well, having taken best in show in 1991 with a Standard Poodle officially named Whisperwind’s On A Carousel and known to his owners as Peter. The Poodles she bred were fixtures on the winning stages at dog shows, especially the Poodles with Peter’s DNA in their lineage. In particular, she’d had great success after breeding Peter’s daughters to a British-born Standard Poodle named Gordon who was named a top dog in Finland as well as in the United States. “That combination worked beautifully for me,” Blackie told Best in Show Daily. “It had gotten to the point where I could use the dogs that came from the Peter/Gordon breedings and know exactly what I was going to get, what kind of tail-set, carriage, coat, temperament, everything.”