Best in Show

Manhattan's Madison Square Garden echoed to the barking babel of 2,537 contestants tuning up for the Westminster Kennel Club show. In the noisome cellar, poked and petted by nosy spectators, combed, brushed and pedicured within an inch of their lives, the dogs awaited the big moment. Stalwart Shelties whimpered and rattled their chains, baboon-faced Afghans paced and snarled, scrappy little Skye terriers yapped through their long hair. Off in a corner, professional handlers gave their charges a last-minute grooming before they went upstairs to strut. Their necks strapped high in dressing stands, long-suffering purebreds submitted to dogdom's final indignity: a beauty treatment. Frisky beagles were primped and powdered like debutantes; embarrassed poodles got a final fluff on the ruthless clipping that had turned them into clowns.

Even Ch. Kippax ("Jock") Fearnought, 65 Ibs. of snuffling, bowlegged bulldog, got the kind of going-over that lavender-scented old ladies save for their lap dogs. A splendid anachronism from the days when Britons still baited bulls, 28-month-old Jock waddled into the ring without so much as a brier scratch or the toothmark of an honest alley fight on his tough red-and-white hide. Bored, and too lazy to walk a step more than necessary, he took the blue ribbon among nonsporting breeds.

American dog lovers, who seem to put up with a lot of nonsense, have never taken to bulldogs. Whelping is difficult; for all their rugged exterior, they often have a frail constitution. They are shortlived (six years is considered old). Most important, they are unsociable. "Jock is probably the most disobedient dog I've ever known," said his diminutive (120 lbs.) owner, California Physician John A. Saylor. "He never plays. Bulldogs sit and brood--when they're not sleeping, that is. Jock spends nine-tenths of his waking hours asleep." With fine disdain Jock stood in the ring while a silver-blonde Afghan, a sealyham terrier, an English springer spaniel, a Yorkshire terrier and a boxer competed with him for best in show. "He just doesn't give a damn until he wants to give a damn," sighed Owner Saylor, "and he doesn't give one very often." But in the view of Judge Albert Van Court, Jock's massive shoulders, his wrinkled face with its powerful undershot jaw, and the low-slung carriage seemed little short of perfection. Not since 1913 had a bulldog won that final award.

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