Betty Regina Leininger: A Study in Elegance

Photo by Lisa Croft-Elliott

By Joan Harrigan

Betty Regina Leininger of Frisco, Texas is the kind of judge who finds excitement and glamour at every dog show. Whether dressed in an evening gown and judging a group at Westminster or enduring the heat without a hat at an outdoor show, Leininger says, “there are always wonderful dogs!” Over the years, judging assignments have taken her to Long Beach, California for the 2003 AKC/Eukanuba National Championships, to the World Shows in Rio de Janeiro (2004) and Mexico City (2007), and to the Garden to judge the Non-Sporting Group in 2004 and the Working Group in 2012.

Leininger has judged many national specialties during a career of more than 30 years, including three Doberman Pinscher Club of America National Specialties. She has also judged specialties for rare breeds such as the Norwegian Lundehund, Pumi, and Fila Brasileiro. Leininger has been privileged to judge Best in Show at many U.S. shows, and is also a sought-after international judge. She has judged in China, Taiwan, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as multiple South and Central American countries, and her native Canada. “I’m not quite as brave as I used to be,” she says.

“Over the years, I have visited many countries where I couldn’t speak the language and wasn’t familiar with the culture. Today, air travel is much more challenging, though, and this has reduced the appeal of accepting overseas assignments. And, it is more difficult to recover from a long flight now than when I started judging in 1983!”

After decades of hard work and “two PhDs-worth of research and knowledge” Leininger approaches the “plum” of her career in dogs with great anticipation: she is the 2014 Best in Show judge at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. “It’s the Super Bowl of dog shows, and there is something about walking onto the floor of the Garden that is just magical,” she says. “I am so very fortunate to have been invited to judge Best in Show this year.”

It Began with a Police Dog

Born in Salmon Cove, Newfoundland, Leininger grew up in the province’s largest city, St. John’s, with two brothers and assorted family pets, always including a cat and a dog. “The dogs were rescues or puppies we were given,” she recalls. “Never a purebred.”

An officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police unwittingly began Leininger’s career in purebred dogs when he retired and gave her his black and silver German Shepherd police dog, Palomar’s Ladd. “I was only 21,” Leininger recalls. “I loved the breed—to me, they are poetry in motion, and so very smart and so incredibly loyal. The German Shepherd breed remains very near and dear to my heart to this day.”

Leininger was walking Ladd in the town square when a lady approached her and admired him. “She told me about an upcoming three-day dog show 75 miles away, and she thought that I ought to enter Ladd. She even offered to send me the information and entry forms.” This caught Leininger’s interest, and despite never having been to a dog show, she entered Ladd and handled him herself. “Needless to say, I was a nervous wreck,” she says. “But it was all so very exciting!” Ladd went Reserve Winners Dog—“it was a small show,” Leininger is quick to add. “But I decided immediately that this was something that I wanted to pursue.”

After losing Ladd in an unfortunate accident, Leininger set out to find his successor. Despite her efforts, it was difficult to find an established breeder willing to sell a promising puppy to someone new to the fancy and living in a remote province of Canada. It took time and patience to find just the right German Shepherd puppy with the temperament that Leininger sought. After many phone calls and much correspondence, Mary Southcott of Cara Mia Kennels near Toronto took an interest in Leininger, and sent her a 5-month-old black and tan puppy. “Mitzi” became Leininger’s first champion—Ch. Cara Mia’s Illusion, and was her companion for many years. Soon, Mitzi was joined by Cara Mia’s Cassandra (“Cass”), a sable bitch. Leininger then decided to move to Toronto, where dog shows would be more accessible than in Newfoundland. Southcott, who had become Leininger’s first mentor, met her plane, and kept her two German Shepherds while Leininger found a job and apartment in Toronto. Amazingly, she accomplished both within a couple of days. Armed with a letter of introduction from her former employer, Leininger contacted a large Toronto law firm, arranged an interview, and was hired on the spot. The firm then generously dispatched the company chauffeur to drive Leininger to find suitable housing. They found an available unit in an English Tudor on a beautiful tree-lined street, and Leininger moved in the very next day.

From Toronto to the States

Though her life in Toronto had come together quite easily, it wasn’t ideal. Without a car, Leininger couldn’t get to the dog shows that had prompted her move. Mitzi and Cass were living with Southcott, and Leininger visited on weekends. Homesick for her family and friends, Leininger found Toronto’s busy urban environment and extremely cold winters didn’t suit her. In another twist of fate, American friends she had met at a Canadian dog show called to invite her to an AKC show.

Leininger assumed that it would be a show weekend—easy to arrange around her work schedule. “But these shows were on a Monday and Tuesday, which I found very odd,” Leininger recalls. However, she traveled by bus to Buffalo, and then on to New York City and her first AKC dog show—the 1970 Westminster.

“It was electrifying,” Leininger says. “I walked into Westminster, and there were all the famous handlers I’d only seen in photographs—Jane and Bob Forsyth, Frank Sabella and others—and now I could watch them showing their dogs. I was like a kid in a candy shop. I just wanted to jump up and down and dance.” After a hectic few days, Leininger returned to Toronto, resigned from her job, gathered her dogs and her belongings, and moved to the U.S. She knew that she wanted to become a professional handler, and worked “very, very hard” to accomplish that goal. “I was like a sponge,” she says. “I watched, listened, read, and learned all that I could in the shortest possible period of time.” Initially, Leininger settled in Atlanta and worked with Jeffrey Lynn Brucker, to whom she was married for several years.

In later years, Leininger struck out on her own, but continued to be based in Atlanta. Her son, Geoff, was under two when she established her own business, and she didn’t want to subject him to the travel required of a handler. “As luck would have it, I met a wonderful retired couple from Connecticut who became surrogate grandparents to Geoff,” Leininger says. The couple had retired young and needed something to occupy their time, so they cared for Geoff when Leininger was on the road. When Geoff started school, Leininger retired from handling. She married Leonard Leininger, a corporate officer at J.C. Penney, and the couple moved to Glastonbury, Connecticut—ironically, the former hometown of Geoff’s surrogate grandparents.

“I wanted to remain involved in purebred dogs; they had become my life, and I had wonderful friends in the fancy,” Leininger says. She had bred Dobermans and German Shepherds, but only sparingly, and primarily as a co-breeder with her clients. To Leininger, the obvious next step was to apply for her judging license. Approaching this with her normal resolve and work ethic, she was originally approved for five working breeds in 1983. From there, she added to her roster of breeds and groups—Leininger is now approved to judge the Working, Toy, and Non-Sporting Groups, as well as Pointers, Whippets, Manchester Terriers, the Miscellaneous Breeds, Junior Showmanship and Best in Show. Leininger’s goal has never been to become an all-breed judge. “I never saw the need and I wanted to balance my professional life with my home life,” she says. “I didn’t want to travel every weekend—I wanted to be able to spend time with my husband and son. All judges are limited to 175 dogs per day, and I’m very comfortable with what I have.”

It gives me goosebumps!

Just two months after she judged Westminster’s 2012 Working Group, Leininger was invited to be the 2014 Best in Show judge. Her assignment was to be kept secret until early May 2013, when the judging panel was made public. “I didn’t tell a living soul—not even my son,” she says. Her resolve didn’t waiver during a 17-day cruise with a fellow judge, who wanted to engage in casual speculation. “I only said to her, ‘well, it must be a girl, because it was a boy last year,’” Leininger says. She called her friend very early in the morning the day the announcement would be made, as “I wanted her to finally hear the news from me.”

Best In Show judges at Westminster don’t accept Best In Show assignments in the continental U.S. after the middle of the previous October. It goes without saying that they do not discuss the breeds or dogs that might be judged that night. However, Leininger has found that in the weeks before Westminster, most people don’t want to talk about the dogs she might be called upon to judge—rather, they are interested in what she plans to wear. Leininger always keeps her Westminster outfits secret—this year she will say only that her shopping trip took her outside of Texas. “It’s simple and elegant,” she says. “I hope it is well-received.”

There is a lot of pressure in choosing Best in Show and Reserve Best in Show in a packed Madison Square Garden with millions more watching on television and the internet. Westminster is the only live-televised dog show in the world, and each year fans at the Garden become more vocal in calling out their favorites. While Leininger won’t know the identity of the dogs she will see in the ring that night, she will know their breeds. “Twenty minutes before judging, the Superintendent presents the Best in Show judge with the group winners’ breed standards,” Leininger explains. “So I’ll have the opportunity to review the standards before entering the ring.”

Just how she chooses a Best In Show is understandably difficult for Leininger to articulate.

“When faced with that level of quality, it takes on another dimension,” she says. “I just can’t explain it—it’s not just quoting the breed standard—it just happens. There is a special moment when you look at a dog and know ‘that’s the one.’”

“I don’t know where you go after judging Best In Show at Westminster,” Leininger says. While she has judged at many shows in many countries, nowhere else does she have the feeling she has when she steps into the green-carpeted ring at the Garden. Whatever comes next, it is certain that she will approach it with determination and style. David Frei, Communications Director for the Westminster Kennel Club sums it up well—“Betty Regina Leininger exemplifies the class, elegance, knowledge, and ability that we seek in our judges.”

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Posted by Alex on Feb 4 2014. 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.