A Surprise at Meet The Breeds

 By Amy Fernandez

As I’ve said before, AKC finally nailed it. Okay, Meet The Breeds was copped from the outrageously successful event that comprises half of Crufts these days, but better late than never.

The Javits Center, now that door-to-door train service is finally a reality, is the ideal venue. Nothing confirmed that better than the crowds packing the place this past weekend despite the abysmal weather. Almost every breed was represented. As usual, some clubs devoted more effort to the presentation than others; but each was provided with nifty AKC trading cards encapsulating the bullet points of their breed.

There were a few vendors, but the currency flow was mainly AKC and MTB swag. And that was going like the Old Navy End of Summer sale. I am prretty sure they made the rent.

I want to tell you about the best moment of the day. Twice today and tomorrow the NYPD is presenting an hour-long demonstration of their K-9 security teams. It was impressive; they now have five breeds actively protecting the city–German Shepherds, Belgian Malinois, German Shorthaired Pointers, Labrador Retrievers, and the newest addition, an English Springer Spaniel. It is by far the nation’s largest multipurpose K-9 protection force and the participants ran through a great demo of their specialized skills that totally delighted the massive spectator crowd.

But, I will never get another chance to write this. The cream of the NYPD K-9 force was upstaged.

An understandably popular part of the show was the crowd investigation, which characterizes a good portion of NYC security situations these days. About 20-30 spectators were invited into the ring to simulate a typical situation. One guy was given a backpack preloaded with explosive scent. This represents a very real possibility unfortunately.

The officer walked his K-9 through the crowd as we milled around the ring. And pretty quickly he zeroed in on this guy. Applause…

For part two of this demo–which I personally think helps to instill a public sense of dispassionate security regarding detection dogs–the suspect was asked what he was carrying on his person. And you can’t make this stuff up. It was a priceless moment. He pulled a diamond ring out of his pocket, got down on his knee and proposed to his girlfriend. She accepted.

Oh yeah, NYPD was definitely upstaged. But I have never seen a better demo proving that life is better with dogs.

Short URL: http://caninechronicle.com/?p=177855

Posted by admin on Jan 28 2020. Filed under Current Articles, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.