By Anna Szabó

Summer is in full swing and we are now halfway in the show season. The present leaders in Europe have some serious math to do as the race for Top Dog is about to get double hot. Whilst some countries don’t officially keep records of halfway leaders, or their records are rather hard to find, some others quite enjoy analyzing what the first half of the show season has been like. Also, a select few don’t actually choose their top dog through a point system; so, it can be quite a chaotic task to establish who each country’s FCI world challengers are.

United Kingdom

2026 has been a rather turbulent year for the Royal Kennel Club. There was a string of regrettable resignations from key positions, the public press more punishing than ever, the Royal Windsor Dog Show cancelled due to heat, and Gavin Robertson of Soletrader fame as newly elected RKC chairman to hopefully lead to organization out of the current negative spiral it’s been in for the last few years.

The country’s current–and quite possibly unbeatable–top Utility and Top Dog All Breeds with an incredible seven consecutive Best in Shows at general Championship Shows in the UK is the Toy Poodle female, BIS Ch Ch Dream High Kai Kennel Afterglow Adrenaline, owned by Jason Lynn and Tom Isherwood, and presented by Tom. Little ‘Asia’ defeated some 50,000+ dogs at those seven shows alone. She was bred by Kai Wang in China. We are excited to see what the future holds for her.

The halfway leaders of the rest of the six groups are:

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204 – August, 2026

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By Amy Fernandez

Neighbor-vs.-neighbor altercations are a classic source of legal nightmares. Driveway access, backyard parties, trees, garbage cans… the list is endless. However, one particular issue tends to ignite truly vicious fights. You know where this is going. Yes, dogs are the source of countless ugly neighbor-vs.-neighbor disputes. We had a headline example of that here on Long Island a few years ago. The defendant in this case—which went all the way up the legal food chain—is Peter Galantino, a rather prominent Rockville Centre resident. He also owned a Goldendoodle. His neighbors, James and Elizabeth Joyce, also own dogs, including a four-pound Yorkshire Terrier named Mocha.

So, here’s the basic story of what went down in Rockville Centre that fateful afternoon of March 14, 2020. It began when Mr. Galantino permitted his dog to relieve itself on another resident’s front lawn and then began to casually stroll away. Mrs. Joyce, who was also out with her Yorkie and her German Shepherd at the time, brought this oversight to Mr. Galantino’s attention. The simple thing would have been to clean up after his dog, something that is legally required in New York. Instead, it quickly spiraled into a nasty fight, which culminated in Mr. Galantino kicking the Joyces’ Yorkie seven feet into the air. The dog landed on the pavement headfirst. At that point, law enforcement arrived, and the situation escalated from personal to criminal.

New York has an extensive list of animal cruelty offenses on the books. They range from misdemeanors to Class A felonies. The problem is not a lack of legal deterrents or remedies; it’s a matter of enforcement. Police typically do not respond to incidents involving pets. They also tend to discourage victims from filing official reports after the fact. All that makes prosecution very difficult. Most likely, Mrs. Joyce’s status as a retired NYPD K9 trainer made a difference in this case.

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190 – August, 2026

By Amy Fernandez

In a sense, every dog has always been a Working breed. Every one of them performed a specific job. In the 19th century, that broad job description was abandoned in favor of increasingly precise purebred classifications. Today, Working breeds have become highly specialized and compartmentalized into very specific roles. That can lead us to overlook the fact that canine utility was the spark that drove the entire evolutionary process–and that extended far beyond the wolf-to-dog transformation. It is debatable whether our species would have survived or thrived to populate so many parts of the world without canine assistance.

A couple of papers recently published in the journal, Nature, have brought this idea into sharper focus. Although conducted by different teams, both studies arrived at similar conclusions, providing the first definitive genetic evidence of when the human/canine partnership commenced. Their findings kick the domestication timeline back several thousand years earlier than previously believed.

There’s never been any shortage of canid fossils to study. The problem has been trying to distinguish the dogs from their wolf ancestors. Skull shape and jaw size have been the primary indicators until now. Obviously, that method was less than reliable when examining ancient fragments of bone. More importantly, domestication occurs as an incremental process. Physically, there was very little physical difference between wolves, early domestic dogs, and all those hybrid types in between.

DNA technology has been a game changer for making those judgment calls. For the first time, it has become possible to identify that critical genetic tipping point in the fossil record. The underlying research in these studies was based on a combination of bioarcheology and DNA sequencing. This approach was utilized by two separate but parallel research teams. Their methodology was somewhat different. The surprising part is that they arrived at the same startling results.

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162 – August, 2026

By Lori Sternola

Here’s my premise: Judges’ Ed has greater importance in rare breeds than it does in other breeds. I’m not saying it isn’t always important, or that more popular breeds matter less, or that the presentations shouldn’t always be high quality and presented in a useful and unbiased way. But what I am saying, is this:

If you have Golden Retrievers, or Whippets–not only can judges, aspiring judges, and other exhibitors see your breed every weekend; but they usually see enough of them to cast a critical eye over what they’re looking at; and to take a view on which dog is best, and why. How many specialties do you offer nationwide ever year? 30? 40? More? And at how many of those will the clubs offer Judges’ Ed? How many active breeders will attend your larger specialties and be available to share knowledge? Five? 15? More? Breeds like the Chinook and Norwegian Lundehunds have one specialty per year (unless you’re a Harrier in 2026 – in which case, zero; not even a National). How many active breeders are involved in each of the ten rarest breeds in the AKC? Three to five for each breed. Maybe. For a breed that judges might see once or twice a year–and one or two dogs at a time–things are much different. Each “sighting” is worth that much more. Each conversation carries that much more weight. The infrequent Judges’ Ed session for one of these breeds has more value. And that cuts both ways. A good one benefits the breed tremendously by really helping judges and would-be judges understand and evaluate something they won’t see every weekend. A bad one hurts the breed–and disrespects the judges–disproportionately. This is because they can’t just go out and get someone else’s opinion or see ten other examples of the breed next weekend.

The attendees at these seminars have usually gone to a lot of effort to be there: In some cases, they’ve traveled extensively, and paid for meals, hotels, dogsitters at home, etc. In all cases, they’ve given their time and attention in an effort to learn more about our breeds and to be able to judge them with respect for the breed and its future, and knowledge about what they’re seeing and putting their hands on. If I were in their shoes, I would 100% expect that the content of the seminar I attended was presented with integrity and was an accurate reflection of the standard of the breed. I would not feel like I should have to take my time to fact-check the presentation or make sure I wasn’t being misinformed. Each parent club has an absolute responsibility to make sure these presentations are fair, accurate to the standard, and objective. Doing less than that insults the breed, and it insults the audience.

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150 – August, 2026

By Amy Fernandez

Since its founding, AKC has enacted an impressive collection of rules and guidelines. They’re never in short supply. The problem is trying to read them and hopefully apply the appropriate reasoning to any given situation. And that is truly a nightmare, mainly because, like every legal code, many sections of the AKC rules are vague, others are contradictory, and more frequently than anyone cares to admit it becomes very hard to decide whether something is permitted or prohibited. Formal regulations are designed to inform, educate, and rein in chaos. So, yes, the current system needs a bit of sprucing up.

Well, that’s good news–kind of. Cindy Stansell, Chair of the AKC Rules Committee, is attempting to introduce a semblance of uniformity to our ancient rulebook. Cindy comes from a valuable perspective for this job. She started in Siberians back in the 1970s, exhibiting in both conformation and obedience. Since then, she has become best known for her wide-ranging judging career. She has plenty of experience deciphering the rules from both sides of the situation.

She says, “My primary goal is to introduce consistency by grouping like items together, using gender neutral terminology, simplifying the language and making it consistent across all AKC sports. I want everyone to read and understand the rules, but this becomes a challenge when you have read through multiple chapters and sections trying to comprehend a particular regulation.”

It seems like this would be a welcome change. But as we know, whenever and wherever, people automatically resist change. And the dog world being what it is, speculation and rumors often overtake truth. Disregard the misinformation and the noise. These changes are urgently needed and long overdue.

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138 – August, 2026

By Anna Szabó

Whenever a major canine event is assigned to the ENCI (Italian Kennel Club), three things are guaranteed: amazing atmosphere, fabulous food, and organized chaos. However, the 2026 World Dog Show in Bologna was a well-run, professional affair with just a touch of Italian drama to add to the flavour. Parking, the layout of the rings, communication between exhibitors, and the Best In Show ring were indeed very much up to the standards. This world show, along with the 2024 edition in Zagreb, was by far the most atmospheric of the past 20 years.

Italy did fairly well with a judges panel where one could finally see a bit of an effort invested in proper judges, which included both high profile all-rounders and breeder-judges. More variation, however, is still very much needed when it comes to judges in the finals.

That said, the choice of this year’s Best In Show judge for the world dog show was just absolutely brilliant and I think we all agree there wasn’t a more deserving, gentleman of a judge for the role than Claudio de Giuliani. He started breeding and judging in the 1970s and has since written no less than twelve books, including the ‘Il Cane Corso Italiano’, a personal favourite of mine. He has enriched the sport with his knowledge and gentle demeanour in as many fields as one possibly can, and although this may not be my place to say, we generally consider him as one of the best judges in the world today.

He found his Best In Show winner in the lovely Italian Greyhound, Tanuzza dei Raggi di Luna, and Reserve Best in Show in the Pomeranian, Artistry’s Aslan All That Is Good.

The Group winners and judges at the FCI World Dog Show were as follows:

Group 1

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132 – August, 2026

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