Pat Cruz – Memories Of Another Era

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198 – June, 2025

By Amy Fernandez

When we closed the first part of this story, Pat was hanging out with Raymond Oppenheimer, totally immersed in the Bull Terrier scene. So we need to backtrack a bit. Pat never lost her love for Sighthounds. On the contrary, by 1965 she had also acquired an Ibizan Hound, “And we started breeding some Afghans.”

In terms of purebred competition, the Afghan Hound came out of left field in the late 1950s with five of them breaking into the all breed top ten during first eleven years of the Phillips System. In 1956, the year that ratings changed our sport forever, Ch. Crown Crest Zardonx, breeder/owner/handled by Kay Finch, emerged as top winning Hound and became the first of his breed to break into the top ten all breed ranking. The next year Ch. Shirkhan of Grandeur, breeder/owner/ handled by Sunny Shay of Hicksville, Long Island, took over as the top winning Hound and remained in the all breed top ten from 1957-59. Without skipping a beat, Ch. Crown Crest Mr. Universe took over as the top winning Hound, also placing in the all breed top ten in 1959 and 1960.

The breed was definitely on a roll when the formidable Mrs. Cheever Porter staked her claim in the ring with Ch. Holly Hill Desert Wind, handled by Jane Kamp. Back then, Janie was truly all over the place, juggling top winners in every group. She had plenty of assistants, including Pattie Proctor and Pam Hall, which is how Pat got into this mix. That went from giving two teenage girls rides to shows to taking last minute handoffs from Janie. And Pat being Pat, if it was about dogs she was all in.

Click here to read the complete article
198 – June, 2025

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Posted by AnthonyA on Jun 16 2025. 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.