Dog Show

White was the fashionable color at this year's Dog Show, the 58th staged by the Westminster Kennel Club. Boxed by a low red fence, the big oblong carpet in the centre of Manhattan's Madison Square Garden was its usual faded green. The 8,000 spectators wedged tight around the fence and tiered in the great oval galleries for the final night's judging last week were a somber mass. But under the arc lights glaring from the ceiling the six dogs which stood at smart attention waiting for Dr. Henry Jarrett of Philadelphia to name one of them best in the U. S. were clad mostly in white.

Spotless as alabaster statues were the greyhound Lilly of Devoir and the big French poodle Nunsoe Duc de la Terrace. The tight white coat of the wire-haired fox terrier Flornell Spicy Bit of Halleston was hound-marked with tan; the silky white of the pointer Benson of Crombie marked with liver. Snowflake, the Old English sheepdog, looked like a fresh snow drift blanketed with fine blue-grey ash. Only the Pekingese Wu Foo of Kingswere showed no white in its tawny-red fluff. The final judging lasted 20 minutes. Dr. Jarrett watched the six prize-winners as they circled the ring; eyed their carriage, gait and spirit; felt their shoulders, briskets and coats; solemnly pondered his decision.

Meanwhile downstairs dog-lovers had finished their plodding up & down between the solid rows of wire-fronted boxes where lay most of the 2,455 dogs which had not made the final grade. Two days earlier the dogs had been alert and slick, primed to the pink by kennelmen looking to reputation and profits through wins in the No. 1 U. S. dog show. Now dogs and handlers lolled together in the cramped boxes, panting in unison. But there was still enough spirit left in the terriers and high-strung German Shepherds to keep the basement a yapping bedlam.

Longest row of boxes was occupied by short-legged, lop-eared cocker spaniels, which topped this year's entry list with 161. Excellent gun dogs, they are steadily becoming more popular as pets. With all six finalists in the ring upstairs foreign-bred, a cocker named The Great My Own was last week named best U.S.-bred dog in the show. Not since 1922 has a U.S.-bred dog won best-in-show at Westminster.

People who like pugs, poodles and dachshunds last week hailed increased entry lists for all three as another sign of their reviving popularity. New breeds entered as a class at the show this year were bull mastiff and Great Pyrenees. Brindled and powerful, with a worried wrinkle in its big, square forehead, the bull mastiff is the result of a cross between mastiff and bulldog. The Great Pyrenees looks something like a white Newfoundland, is an able sheep herder in its native mountains. Lately imported from Europe, its U. S. owners have found it an amiable companion, an excellent watchdog.

Far & away the best-liked dog type in the U. S. is the terrier. There were 766 terriers at Westminster last week, headed by 146 wire-haired foxes, 138 Scotties. Outstripped by their wire-haired cousins, once popular smooth-haired fox terriers are slowly coming back to favor.

As Judge Jarrett, British-bred Philadelphia veterinary, cocked his head, wrinkled his brow and slowly came to his decision, the crowd about the ring was almost breathless with suspense. Dr. Jarrett had previously named two stocky white Sealyhams as best brace in the show, four of their dark-haired Scottish cousins as best team. Would he switch now to the great pointer, prancing proud and free as a stallion, of famed Fancier Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge, niece of John Davison Rockefeller Sr.? Or to the magnificent poodle, champion of England, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland and France, entered by Mrs. Sherman Hoyt of Manhattan? . . . Finally Judge Jarrett waved the two-year-old fox terrier bitch, Flornell Spicy Bit of Halleston, into the winning stall.

Week before Flornell Spicy Bit had been beaten in a specialty show limited to her own breed. No one expects a dog judge to explain which among a hundred fine-drawn points of form and carriage has made him place one perfect purebred above all others. But Judge Jarrett last week departed from custom to comment on his choice: "This is a wonderful fox terrier of the correct size, shown in good coat, put down well and splendidly handled. In fact, she won comfortably."

The new champion was imported from England two months ago by Stanley Halle of Chappaqua, N. Y. Last week lay spectators admired the immense dignity, weighty as a Newfoundland's, with which she comported herself in the ring. But Flornell Spicy Bit of Halleston did not win their hearts until, at the very moment when Judge Jarrett was naming her U. S. Dog of the Year, she slipped her leash and frisked across the ring as saucily as though her name were Gyp.

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