The Kennel Club of Philadelphia
photos by Eugene Zaphiris and Matthew Stander
This year, once again, the Kennel Club of Philadelphia was held in downtown Philadelphia. It is doubtful that the venue, the Pennsylvania Convention Center, will be available on the same date next year. As I understand it, the Club is looking for an alternate date and/or an alternate site. The venue itself is ideal for a dog show, union and parking problems notwithstanding. Parking is both expensive and difficult in most large inner cities, and downtown Philly is no exception. I do believe that based upon the large spectator attendance on Saturday and Sunday (Thursday and Friday were empty, which, of course, is the norm for most shows that hold four-day inner city events), efforts will be made to take over some parking lots to accommodate both exhibitors and spectators. This should help reduce that inconvenience. As to the union problems, they truly are behind-the-scene encounters that are annoying but do not generally effect the general public.
Philadelphia is a great city to visit. Traffic is manageable—not easy but doable. Hotels, which are numerous, are expensive but not really wallet-breaking and are within walking distance of the venue. Restaurants galore and plenty to do as well. Nonetheless, entries were low for what was an extremely prestigious show. Saturday had close to 1,200 dogs; Sunday almost 1,000, and the first two days 600-700 (with large absentees on Thursday and Friday. Does one blame the low entries on downtown Philadelphia? Maybe. On the judging panel? Maybe. Or on the comepetition on the same day in Syracuse, North Carolina, and Columbus, Ohio? Are there just too many shows in proximity the same day, as occurs with Westchester? But look at Chicago’s International—virtually a clone situation to Philadelphia. True, there was a time Chicago suffered badly entry-wise, but Lou Auslander never gave up and constantly devised new approaches and ideas to increase entries. With all due respect to whoever runs Philadelphia, which is not easy to understand with which to begin, some creative thinking is needed to do something about those falling entries.
The winner of the show, which is to be televised right after the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on NBC, is euphemistically referred to by its presenter, Purina, as the National Dog Show. Were it only true that this is a “national dog show.” Truly, the entry is very northeast-oriented. Nonetheless, the victor, in a strong line-up, was a lovely Australian Shepherd bitch co-bred and owned by Nancy Gagnon. While I would not say the group competitions were the strongest, fortunately in each group, there were at least one or two dogs from which to choose. The strongest of all the group choices were, for me at any rate, in the Working Group. Other Best in Show winners were Mrs. Rockefeller’s Peke on Sunday, the Gordon Setter on Friday shown by Kristin Karboski, and the Saluki on Thursday bred and owned by Tatiana Partridge.
Well, until I read Sari’s article on the term limit vote, I thought I would be writing an endorsement to eliminate term limits entirely. I still feel strongly that term limits should not go into effect for AKC’s Board of Directors, but if Sari is right and a mistake did occur in the GAZETTE printing of the wording, I suppose the vote will be put off until the December meeting. In any event, I basically am not a term limit person, and I foresee chaos in the March 2009 election, should the delegates have to vote on four seats for four new directors due to a continuation of term limits. Not too much of an election for the four-year term to be voted on in March 2008, as there is no opposition to the three seated directors who were nominated by the Nominating Committee. That leaves the two-year term open where indeed Dr. Fred C. Bock II of the Key City Kennel Club in Minnesota will run against Carmen Battaglia, the Nominating Committee’s selection. That, of course, is for the Keene seat, which Mr. Keene lost when he failed to find another seat to represent after his club replaced him.
I expect that many of you will be attending some part of the big California weekend coming up in late November. Look forward to seeing you there. In the meantime, have a happy Thanksgiving. •
