IRISH WOLFHOUND SOCIETY OF IRELAND

 

     
  • February 16, 2010, 3:48 pm
  • Where Even First-Stringers Get Benched
    By ALEXANDRA CHENEY for The New York Times

    Life on the bench: Wildisle Castlekeepers Quest, an Irish wolfhound, with his handler, Bill Peacy, waits it out at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show next to Angelika Sotnick, of Granby, Conn., and her wolfhound, Skye Cu Lugus.

    Life on the bench: Wildisle Castlekeepers Quest, an Irish wolfhound, with his handler, Bill Peacy, waits it out at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show next to Angelika Sotnick, of Granby, Conn., and her wolfhound, Skye Cu Lugus.He goes by Bugsy, even though his show name is Draggonfly Call Me Your Sugar. The chocolate-and-black English toy spaniel Blenheim and Prince Charles entered Madison Square Garden at 6:30 a.m. Monday morning and did not use the bathroom the rest of the day.


“And he won’t until we leave,” his owner/handler/breeder, Gloria Pistor, said Monday evening. “He’s not a dominant dog, which means he won’t pee in a place where other dogs have been going all day.” She pointed toward the nearest x-pen, or doggie bathroom.

The Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, which winds up its 134th competition late Tuesday night, is a haven of traditions within traditions. One of them is that as a “bench show” — one of only five left in the country — Westminster requires the dogs to remain on a bench backstage from 11:30 a.m. until 8 p.m. for public viewing. They are allowed off the bench for their showing time in the ring or to use the x-pens, but cannot leave the building.
If the rules are broken, a benching violation can lead to a fine or, more severely, banishment from all future Westminster shows. For Bugsy, a silky-coated dog from Pennsylvania, that meant holding on for 14 hours.


Anticipating their 8 p.m. departure, dogs and their owners line up backstage at the 134th Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.

  • The benching requirement leads to other curious backstage arrangements. Though the dogs cannot leave, their owners can, and may hire Madison Square Garden security guards to watch the dogs in their absence. For up to eight hours at a clip, the guard sits on the bench next to a crated dog and makes sure no one tries to touch it (or feed it, or take it to the bathroom).

    “We hired a guard to give us a break, to walk back to the hotel, change, have lunch,” said Maureen Esposito, owner of Ivanwold Holy Smoke, a pug, who had driven in with her family from outside Harrisburg, Pa. “I think this was a big day for us and well worth it.”

    As the first day of the show fell on President’s Day, a union holiday, the guards charged extra — $230 for a five-hour shift and $355 or eight hours. That works out to more than $40 an hour.

    David Frei, a spokesman for the kennel club, explained that the point of a bench show was to make the competitors accessible. “Our purpose is to educate the audience and be great teachers, let them find out about breeds and talk to owners, not just put on a dog show,” he said.

    The bench, built into a cubicle-like structure 42 inches long, is big enough for most dogs. But not all. Alice Kneavel, owner of Wildisle Castlekeepers Quest, an Irish wolfhound, effectively bought her dog an extra seat by entering a second wolfhound (for $75) but not bringing him along. This allowed her to unscrew the yellow barrier between two benches and let Wildisle stretch out.

    “This is almost torture, almost cruel, and it’s ridiculous,” Ms. Kneavel said. “He’s a good dog and good example of the breed, but shouldn’t the people see the dog and not have the dogs waiting for 10 hours to see the people?”

    Winning the Irish Wolfhound Award of Merit, Wildisle’s handler, Bill Peacy, who drove 12 hours from Waukegan, Ill., to show the dog, said the added fees, long day and backstage benching were worth the trouble. “There’s glitz, there’s excitement,” he said, pausing. “And it’s Westminster.”

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    SOURCE:  New York Times