Looking Around with Lee – Dog Show Days…circa the 1960s

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146 – September 2019

By Lee Canalizo

Yea, it’s time to go to the dog show! The dog is bathed, lunch is packed, dog snacks are included, station wagon is gassed up, and the three kids are anxious for an adventure! Oh, yes, grooming supplies are included….one brush, a water bowl and enough dog food for the trip! Maybe, after becoming addicted to the shows, we might include a grooming table, and a wire crate.
The day before all grooming was completed! A bath with the dog dried with a hand-held hair dryer, or out in the sun. We had Afghan Hounds and that required so much grooming…there was a time when ( especially in the winter months) we dried them in the kitchen with an old Hoover Constellation vacuum cleaner turned on its side with a hose attacehd to the blower end, with the suction opening on the stove door and a warm oven supplying heat; yes…that was our first blow dryer! Next came a good brush out, a little cream rinse, and that’s it! Off we go, ready for a fun weekend, win or lose!
Of course, before all the above takes place, the entries had to be made. This included making out the forms taken from the premium lists, which have been delivered by the mailman! Next the checkbook comes into play. The cost is seven dollars per entry. Wow! Done…. Entry fees come first, the mortgage can wait!
Dog shows in those days were often family affairs, and many of the present-day handlers were children tagging along with their parents, sometimes reluctantly. The kids had their buddies and did their own thing without the danger’s kids face today. We showed our dogs, chatted and learned from the older generation, shared lunch, sometimes tailgated long after our showing was done for the day and, in general, we had a positive time!
Fast-forward to today, starting with the entry process……
Long gone are the hours spent dissecting the Gazette to discern where the next show would be. We went to any local show we could find. And most were major events with 2,000-3,000 dogs at each event. Hell…even the local match shows were nearly all over 1,000 dogs! Nowadays, I would estimate that 80% of the entries are done via an online system or with an Entry Service. Back in the day, I remember always entering the “Garden” at the huge Eastern Dog Club in Boston in early December…we just handed them in at the Super’s table and we were done! Watching the hysteria grow with each ensuing year seemed ridiculous to me. I still, for the life of me, can’t understand how these things grow into these manic, panic states.

Picking the Judges…

Most times, we didn’t really care who was judging because we didn’t know who they were anyway….one was very lucky to find out who won a big show by hearing the news from a rich friend who would call “long distance”. Or we waited three months for the Gazette to come out. There was no such thing as Facebook with its myriad “pages” for new judges, good judges, bad judges, good judges some try to make out as bad judges, ad nauseum!

At the Show….

Now this is where the biggest shift in the sport seems to have occurred. We went to a show and, yikes, I even remember some of the outdoor shows being benched under huge tents. There were massive tracts of land available. Some were in parks, on old estates or schools, and all were actually quite elegant and civilized, in my mind anyway. I don’t ever remember any “Gold Rush” to get a spot for grooming…especially at an outdoor event. The concept of reserved, or even worse, paid grooming just wasn’t in our lexicon in those days. The shows were peaceful with the ambient sound of dogs barking being music to ones ears. Having a blow dryer at a show just wasn’t typical. Everyone bathed their dogs at home and did a respectable job of grooming when they arrived at the show. We had Afghan Hounds! …

Click here to read the complete article
146 – September 2019

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