An American Junior Conquers the World

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282 – August, 2015

by Amy Fernandez

Junior Showmanship draws its share of Westminster fans, but it generally doesn’t rank among the main attractions. This year was different. Regardless of whether you follow Juniors, every aspect of this competition was so unexpectedly bizarre, it simply commandeered the dog world’s attention. Topping that list was the winning breed, the Bedlington Terrier dog, GCH Lamz Let Them Eat Cake CA. His littermate, GCH Lamz Strike A Pose RN CAA CGC, had already gone Breed earlier that day. And their dam had taken an AOM.

All that was nice, but the Bedlington currently ranks 134th among AKC breeds and its moment of Westminster glory happened way back in 1948. Right now, it’s about as far as you can get from a good bet. No one knows that better than the person at the other end of that lead, 16-year-old Lydia Frey. “The Garden is so special, I always dreamed of showing there and this was my first year qualifying. My mom and all my friends were there and oh my gosh, oh gosh, I can’t even imagine this. Almost all the kids in there (87 others) had qualified before, and some had been in the finals several times. And here I am a total newbie, one of the youngest in there with my puppy. It was like a total world of craziness.”

Maybe that was running through Lydia’s mind, but from ringside her poise and confidence told the world that she owned that ring. “I credit Tony. I am so focused on him in the ring and our connection is so strong. He is very calm and the bigger the crowd, the better he shows. He loves it. When we were waiting to go in, he perked up and pulled himself together like ‘this is it’. It’s definitely easier to be confident when you have a dog that will rise to the occasion. I thought, I am just going to show you the best I can and leave it all out there.” From an objective standpoint, we all know that. Even so, cultivating that quiet confidence, focus, and detachment is a hell of a lot easier than it sounds. “Yes, I think I do a good job, but I definitely didn’t expect to win.” Her major reality check was that frequently mentioned, obvious disadvantage, “Everybody was like; you don’t go to a dog show with a sheep. He was the first Bedlington to go to Westminster’s Junior finals. A lot of lucky things came together.”

Ranking high on that list of lucky things was Mr. Michael Dougherty, whose notable reputation in Terriers dates back to 1974 when he joined his father Jack as professional handler. He bred and handled many Terrier winners until retiring to judge in 1985. “I thought okay, Mr. Dougherty does Terriers. At least he will understand the breed I’m showing which is always nice.” Good point, but Lydia long ago learned to roll with that complication. “Bedlingtons are different, and it’s hard to know which judges are going to understand that. Yes, I can stack the front wider, but this is a slabsided breed. They should be stacked with their front feet touching or very close together.” Emphasizing her point she recounts, “One judge gave me Best Junior and when I set my dog up on the podium he said, ‘I think you have the front set a little too narrow and you were doing that in the ring, too.’ After Lydia recapped the Bedlington standard for him, he admitted that thought she had been stacking her dog incorrectly and it had nearly cost her the win. “Bedlingtons also have different tailsets and carriages, so a lot of judges don’t really know how they should be presented. You really can’t go wrong as long as you don’t pull it [the tail] up over the back.” Showing the bite can be equally problematic. “A lot of judges come from breeds like Dobermans, so they expect to see the full bite, molars and everything, but you only show the front of a Bedlington’s bite.”

Sketchy breed knowledge certainly adds another complication to this endeavor. “It’s about knowing who you are showing to. When I do my entries, I take a lot of time researching judges to check what breeds they are approved for, what Juniors they put up in the past, and generally get a feel for what they are looking for.” Okay, ring strategy is crucial in this situation, but there’s a little more to the game for this breed. “Grooming is one of the hardest parts. It takes a long time to learn the hand scissoring and the coat requires so much upkeep to keep them in condition. My dog gets a bath every three days, and every day when I show him. I think that’s why a lot of people aren’t interested in getting into Bedlingtons.” Many professional handlers don’t even go near the breed for justifiable reasons. However, by then, no one doubted Lydia’s resolve.

Her start in the game was typical, except perhaps she caught the dog show bug a little earlier than most. “When I was eight, I was watching a rerun of Eukanuba on Animal Planet and I attempted to stack our pet Standard Schnauzer.” That was it. “I told my mom that I want to show dogs. And she was like yea, okay.” This sort of non-stop sales pitch comes part and parcel with parenthood as does the time-honored response strategy. Ignore it, because it usually goes away, but not always. “After about four months of asking, she said okay, we will buy a show dog. My mom made sure we got a Standard Schnauzer because she loves the breed and she thought, ‘well when she gets tired of this at least we will have an awesome family dog.’”

Lydia’s pup finally arrived but nine-year-olds can’t just hop in the car and head off to the show, and her parents had their own weekend commitments. “My mom and dad are both professional horse trainers. I showed horses throughout my childhood. Our whole life has been horse shows. They travel as much as I do for dog shows, if not moreso. At first I only did a few local shows here and there. Sometimes my grandmother or my Schnauzer breeder took me.” Jumping into the game with no network, experience, or show transportation would seem sufficient to disenchant most novices. “My parents always expected that I would come back to the horses. But I never lost interest and we ended up with more dogs.” Ultimately, her parents had the foresight to recognize that her interest was serious. “My parents supported me every step of the way. There were times when I wanted to quit and they really encouraged me to stay with it.”

Lydia’s mother did more than that. Dog people might not recognize her name but she is no stranger to intense competition. Kim Prince heralds from Park City, Utah, which explains her natural interest in horses. Like Lydia, it quickly got serious. At 16, she relocated to the east coast to work with internationally known show jumping trainers. By age 19, she joined the U.S. Equestrian Team, later founded her Snowbrook show stable, and remains a top star on international horse show circuits. And she ensured that Lydia came into this game with eyes wide open. “When my mother agreed to let me show dogs, she said she wanted to see what it was like at the top.” In December 2007 they headed off for the AENC in Long Beach, California. After all, this was the show that inspired Lydia’s passion for the sport. “We were watching junior showmanship and there was a tall blonde girl showing a Bedlington. We ended up talking to her mother ringside discovering that they had left horse showing to show dogs, and lived 45 minutes away from us in Virginia.”

A few years into it, Lydia met them again. “Laurie Zembrzuski and Gaby Gilbeau showed up at the ring that day with stunning dogs that were groomed to perfection. I subsequently lost. After the breed they took me aside and gave me a little handling lesson and some grooming tips. The next day I came back and went Best of Opposite over one of their specials.” They also offered to mentor Lydia and set her up with a show prospect. But, as previously noted, Bedlingtons aren’t an easy sell. “While I liked the breed, I was uninterested in getting into them and didn’t want to do the grooming at all.” Lydia’s mom recognized a great opportunity, and like determined, sensible mothers everywhere, she said “no” wasn’t an option.

Lydia’s first Lamz pup became Ch. Lamz Upstaged The Bride CA. “Once I got the Bedington, I got more into it. Tony’s breeders taught me everything. I started traveling with them and soon I was showing most weekends. When they couldn’t go, they actually introduced me to Margery Good. She gave me my dog show nickname, ‘Young Legs’. Now everyone calls me Young Legs,” she says laughing.

“I am very lucky my mom was so persistent about getting a Bedlington. Three years after purchasing Pippa, Tony would come into our lives.” Maybe she was lucky, but luck comes down to being ready when opportunity knocks. Lydia says, “Before that, I didn’t have a consistent Juniors dog. Tony is a little rock star. We are special together. From the time he was about five months-old, he could hit a freestack. He finished so quickly, and I really hadn’t trained and shown him that long. He didn’t turn two until May. So I showed him mainly in Juniors and focused on having fun with him. By the end of the year we had 13 Best Junior awards.”

Of course, qualifying for Westminster was only the beginning of this story. Her mother’s reaction to Lydia’s win was, “Okay, what’s next. In horse shows you just continue on to the big championship shows. I said let’s go to the World Show in Italy. I just threw it out there as a joke.” Well…mom didn’t take it quite that way. “We had been to Europe before for horse shows but I didn’t know anything about European dog shows.” No worries. She had almost four months of prep time before plunging into the 2015 World Show. Held June 10-14 in Milan, it attracted almost 30,000 dogs from 40 countries representing 300 breeds. Those mind-boggling numbers were matched by the sheer size of the event which was spread over 103,000 square feet in six pavilions. She says, “There were 101 rings! I was, whoa, I got lost between the different floors at the Garden and now I am supposed to navigate this!?”

It was not only Lydia’s first World Show; it was her first encounter with the delightful complexities that make FCI events endlessly entertaining. “When we got there, I thought I was way out of my league. Maybe this was a terrible idea.” Too late, kid. She says, “Everything is so different, the grooming, the patterns and handling styles. They do so many complicated patterns. When I got there, one girl said she hoped they would ask for figure eights because she is so good at them. I thought running in a circle is enough and you want me to run in a figure eight!? Luckily Tony’s sire was in Europe with a great Bedlington breeder whose daughter was a well-known Junior handler in Sweden. She had been to the Junior finals in Hungary. I messaged her on Facebook and she gave me some advice. I also watched the finals from previous years so I knew some of the patterns.”

Of course, that’s only half the battle. “My dog can do all the American patterns with no problem. But he didn’t understand all the extra stuff I was doing, switching hands, switching sides, moving and spinning. And he was very jetlagged when we got there.” Unfortunately, Tony couldn’t take a jetlag day because Junior Showmanship competition started bright and early Thursday morning. “He was a little bit better the second day, but there were lots of moments when I thought ‘hmmm I don’t really know what’s happening, but I am just going to keep showing my dog.’ Luckily, Tony was fabulous. I couldn’t have asked for more from him. So we made it to the semifinals on Friday.”

Essentially, ten semifinalists from each group return for another round of judging to whittle the competition down to three contenders from each round for Sunday’s Junior finals. “I really wasn’t that nervous for the final because I thought we were going to leave and come back after the preliminary judging. Then they announced that the judge would now choose his top four! Our finals judge explained, ‘I want you to show me the dog and have fun, don’t overcomplicate it. I don’t care how many times anyone switches hands or circles around their dog. You are here to show dogs.’ I think it was really cool that the judge made that point,” she says.

And when the dust settled, it was…

4 Marie Louise Christenden from Denmark showing a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever

3 Giulia Nolli from Italy showing a Bullmastiff

2 Virginia Stevinin from Italy showing an Afghan Hound and…

Now we know for sure, “You can take a sheep to a dog show and still win! It has been really a blessing and an honor to show this breed, and break the ice and prove that you don’t need a Springer Spaniel to win in Juniors,” Lydia says. She has revised several misperceptions about this game and her contribution has just begun. “Now I take weekends off when I want to, but I can work for any number of handlers. I am not planning on leaving the sport anytime soon. This is going to be my thing,” she says. The sport is lucky to have her.

But this story is about more than a junior handler’s triumph. Lydia is the first to acknowledge that she is lucky to have support from people who recognized her innate talent, understood the challenges she faced, and provided the mentoring to help her succeed. However, novices of every age enter this game with equal levels of drive, dedication, and potential. That kind of encouragement and networking can have a tremendous impact to the future of this sport.

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Posted by ralbee on Sep 5 2015. Filed under Current Articles, Editorial, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.