The Ring Cycle: Morris & Essex Returns In Style

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386 – January/February, 2022

By Sarah Montague

I have sometimes likened Westminster to Brigadoon—the imaginary Scottish village celebrated in the Lerner & Loewe 1950s musical. It’s a charmed moment of canine ephemera that appears magically (and with a hell of a lot of hard work) once a year.

However, the analogy holds even more true for the Morris & Essex, which really is a kind of time machine unto itself, appearing “magically” every five years.

Everything Old is New Again

Readers of this journal—and competitors who’ve had the pleasure—don’t need to be reminded of Morris & Essex’s fairy-tale-like origin stories, but just in case you missed that chapter:

Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge established the Morris & Essex Kennel Club, and her elegant show was first held on the grounds of her own estate in 1927. She held her last show in 1957; she was getting on and could no longer fully participate. (I am indebted to Debra Lampert-Rudman’s fine history on the M&E website). But Dodge wasn’t only concerned with top-notch purebreds. She also founded a shelter, St. Hubert Giralda (now St. Hubert Animal Welfare Center) supported by an endowment and a legacy that included items from Dodge’s valuable art collection.

And it was the shelter—in its present incarnation—that led to the resurrection of her show, says Wayne Ferguson, the creator and chairman of Morris & Essex’s contemporary incarnation. “I was on the board of the St. Hubert Giralda—this is 1997. And one of the employees said, ‘Mr. Ferguson, you should go up in the attic and see all the dog show things up there.’ So I went up the stairs, opened the door, and I almost passed out. There were so many archival pieces—judges’ badges; some of the original wooden signs [saying, for example, “Veterinarian”]; superintendents’ catalogs; marked catalogs indicating the dogs that actually won the classes, and thousands of photographs. So that weekend, there was a dog show at the Oak Ridge Kennel Club, near Darien, Connecticut, and a lovely couple who had Border Terriers—Kate and Jim Seaman—had a party after.” Everyone was asking about this amazing treasure trove, and that was the tipping point for Ferguson. “ On the way back to New Jersey, I made up my mind. I thought, “We will resurrect the Morris & Essex, because I know where all the goodies are!’ So we did, and we had our first show in the year 2000.”

Click here to read the complete article
386 – January/February, 2022

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