Back at the Piers: Tuesday

By Joan Harrigan

The crowds were back in full force on Tuesday. Vendors who complained about a slow start and worried that the Purina and Westminster displays kept customers from finding them found their booths packed with customers. Over at Pier 94, Morgan Avila of Lynbrook, N.Y. drew quite an audience with her Leonberger, Ch. Starhavens Irresistible American Idol. Avila wore a chartreuse and black suit and fashionable hat. “Mr. America,” as he is less formally known, was attired in a custom-made purple sequined jacket embossed with a gold eagle.

The 3-year-old Leonberger received attention and pats calmly. He’s no stranger to it—after all, being a show dog isn’t his only career. When not in the ring or relaxing with the three other male Leonbergers Avila owns, Mr. America is a star of stage and screen. He just finished filming the movie version of “The Equalizer” with Denzel Washington, in which he portrayed a guard dog. He’s shown his sensitive side in two seasons as Sandy in “Annie,” as well as “Nana” in Peter Pan. In fact, he’s auditioning for the part of Nana in NBC’s upcoming live version of the musical.

Avila and Mr. America stumbled into acting quite by mistake. “We were visiting a friend in Brooklyn,” Avila says. “The band ‘Real Estate’ was filming a music video, and they asked if Mr. America could be in it.” One thing led to another, and now Mr. America has a television pilot (“Bedbugs and Beyond”) and an agent. Unimpressed by it all, he chose to nap with his head placed gently on the foot of his handler, Portia Flores.

Not far away, Larry Swanson of Stony Brook, N.Y. sat quietly on an unused dolly with his Chesapeake Bay Retriever, Lily. Ch. Ches-Shores Aqua Lily hadn’t had a successful day in the ring, and Swanson was thinking that he’d rather be teaching his classes in marine science at SUNY-Stony Brook. “Lily would rather be swimming,” he said.

“Most of our other dogs have been rescues,” Swanson said. “But I grew up with Chessies and always loved them, so we went to Maryland to get Lily from her breeder, Laura Waid.” It was his wife’s idea to show Lily, and they started late, when the bitch was three. Since then, she’s been quite successful.
Chessies aren’t prone to love everyone they meet, Swanson says. Instead, they prefer to be buddies with just a few people. In his book, “Chesapeake,” James Michener called the Chesapeake Bay Retriever a “blue collar dog.” Swanson agrees with his analogy that even on the coldest day, the Chessie would choose to be out on the deck of a boat, looking for work rather than snoozing by the fire inside like some other sporting breeds he won’t mention.

“I rearranged my schedule around Lily,” Swanson concludes. “My wife pointed out that I had to be at Westminster—she’s my dog.”

And somehow, sitting quietly with Lily, he didn’t seem to want to be anywhere else after all.

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Posted by Alex on Feb 11 2014. 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.