The Largest Dog Show Ever – The World Dog Show

 

BY MARTHA FELTENSTEIN & NIKSA LEMO
PHOTOS BY KAIRE RJADNEV-MERISTO

The World Dog Show 2017 was held in Leipzig, Germany on November 9 through November 12. Every year, a different member country of the FCI (the Federacion Cynologique Internationale) organizes the World Dog Show; every member country may choose to compete for the right to hold the World Dog Show, and the voting by all member countries is held annually, 4 or so years in advance. For 2017, the winner was Ecuador but after the terrible earthquake in that country, the Kennel Club of Ecuador withdrew, stating that all its resources had to go to help fellow Ecuadorians. Given the short no- tice, the FCI gave the right to hold the World Dog Show to the runner-up in the voting for 2017: Germany.

The VDH, the German Kennel Club, had only one year to or- ganize the show and did so with great success. The World Dog Show 2017 broke many records: the 2017 World Dog Show was the largest dog show in the world, with 24,692 individual dogs in the catalog (and over 30,000 entries) and more than 90,000 visitors (based upon gate sales). The show was held in the gigantic Leipzig Messe (Fairground). Five huge halls were big enough to hold the huge number of dogs, which came from all over the world. One hall was reserved for the main (groups and BIS) ring and stands with many shops, while three halls were filled with rings for judging for all 4 days and one hall was reserved for agility and dog dancing. In the FCI, 400 breeds are recognized and divided among 10 groups.

One of the few complaints generally heard was that the rings were too small (they were), especially considering the amount of unused space in each of the vast halls. The rings were of different sizes (having nothing to do with the size of the breed being shown), ranging from just okay, to tiny. In addition, because of the sheer number of dogs, the VDH decided that the judges would not provide written critiques, much to the disappointment of the exhibitors.

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Posted by Alex on Jan 14 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.