Dorothy Macdonald – As Her Friends Remember Her

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194 – June, 2021

By Joan Harrigan

“With all her knowledge, there will never be another like her,” says Hap Sutliff. “She truly enjoyed the dogs—any negativity was not for her.”

“She was strong, kind, and incredibly committed,” Virginia Lyne remembers. “She believed in judging breeding stock, not ‘the flavor of the month.’”

“We have lost an individual who cared very deeply about our sport,” Mari-Beth O’Neill says. “And she cared about all aspects of our sport—conformation and field trials, too.”

“She was delightful, with a wonderful British sense of humor,” says Pluis Davern. “She loved dogs, and people remember her kindness when they were starting out—it didn’t matter to her whether the handler was a professional or a novice—she just judged the dogs.”

If anyone in purebred dogs may be called irreplaceable, it is Dorothy “Dottie” Macdonald, who passed away at The Cottages in Carmel, California on May 4 at age 94. The people who knew her best talk of a woman with encyclopedic knowledge of the history of purebred dogs, who was unfailingly kind, with a great sense of humor, and total dedication to her sport. The list of Dottie Macdonald’s accomplishments is long: a founding board member of Take the Lead, sought-after judge of the Sporting, Hound, and Terrier Groups as well as much of the Toy Group and Best In Show, president and show chair of the Del Monte Kennel Club in Carmel, president of the Dog Judges Association of America, and board member and officer of her chosen breed, the Brittany’s parent club. She won a Winkie for Judge of the Year, and received one of the first AKC Lifetime Achievement Awards. In 2001, she judged Best In Show at Westminster in a full-length Macdonald tartan kilt, choosing J.R., the Bichon Frise—Ch Special Times Just Right, as her winner.

From London to California—in Wartime

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194 – June, 2021

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