The Real World Dog Show

By Gábor Szalánczi

This year, the World Dog Show was held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It was four days, but the first was an all-breed show called the Beneflux Winner. Drawing in 7712 dogs, with limited entries, this show is a warm-up before the World Dog Show. The actual World Dog Show was Friday through Sunday. The afternoons of Friday and Saturday were for specialties, which had 8294 entries; the WDS itself had 17,652 entries, making it a total of 33,658. This makes it the largest show of the year!

Exhibitors came from around the world for this show. The ten countries in which most entries came from were the Netherlands (1921), Germany (1854), Russia (1851), France (1544), Italy (1344), Sweden (917), England (901), Poland (835), Finland (818), and Belgium (709). Traditionally, most exhibitors come from Russia and Scandinavia. However, this year the World Dog Show was in the “neighborhood” for the UK with London being only 330 miles from Amsterdam.

The top ten breeds were the Rhodesian Ridgeback (231), Labrador Retriever (219), Golden Retriever (219), Jack Rus- sell (218), Beagle (212), Bulldog (204), Pug (200), American Staffordshire (188), Bernese Mountain (175), and French Bulldog (154). Many of the breeds that attended were rare in different countries; for example, there were many different pointing dog breeds from France. The Fédération Cynologique Internationale (FCI) has 10 Breed Groups. Groups 1, 3, and 4 (about 5000 entries) showed Friday; Groups 6, 7, 8, and 10 (about 4400 entries) were held Saturday; and Groups 2, 5, and 9 (about 8300 entries) were held on Sunday. About 25% of the dogs entered were handled by professionals. This rate is a little bit higher than what’s ordinary in Europe. Many professional handlers from Europe attended, and some from the Far East and Americas were there, too. The judges and press also came from numerous countries around the world. It was exciting to see so many well-known faces from all over in the press area.

The three consecutive shows gave dogs the possibility of earning up to three tickets towards their NLCH title (four tickets are needed in total) in one weekend. Each breed had two Certificat d’ A ptitude au Champions (CAC), a dog and a bitch, and both were awarded one ticket. The Junior Class Winner received the title of Junior World Winner. The Intermediate winner (dogs 15-24 months), the Open winner (dogs over 18 months), the Working winner (dogs over 18 months that must go through a working test), and Champion Class winner competed for Certificat d’Aptitude au Championnat International de Beauté with a World Winner title. The Veteran Class winner (dogs over 8 years old) competed for Veteran World Winner. The Best Dog and the Best Bitch that received CACs also competed for Best of Breed and Best of Opposite Sex. The Best Junior, Best Veteran, Best Pair, and Best Breeding Groups from each breed were also chosen. In the main ring, in each category, the first through fourth dogs were placed; there were Best of Minor Puppies, Puppies, Pairs, Breeding Groups, Progeny Groups, Best of Working Dogs, and, on Sunday, the Best of Dutch Breed Dogs.

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Posted by Alex on Nov 26 2018. 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.