Frank Booth – Renaissance Man

By Amy Fernandez

According to mainstream media, a debatable informational source at best, the purebred dog world is failing on all fronts, traveling down that fateful highway to keep company with the dinosaurs. Like most alarmist predictions, it doesn’t quite jive with the facts. For one thing, gener- alized assessments are rather meaningless considering the eclectic range of businesses flourishing within this little world. Largely, they sprang up in tandem with the sport’s growth as an obscure niche became a potential opportunity and eventually blossomed into a viable business.

There was a time when no one envisioned small animal practice dominating the veterinary profession much less encompassing so many subplot specialties. If Shark Tank had existed in 1860, it’s hard to believe that anyone would have snagged a backer by pitching prepackaged dog food. Likewise, the idea of a business specializ- ing in dog jewelry undoubtedly seemed like a joke at one point. The only question likely to arise these days would be whether it’s jewelry for dogs or humans. Many of those outlandish ventures not only seem conventional, they have become indispensable. And those entrepreneurial brainstorms just keep coming because the dog world is organic, always growing and changing. That is especially true here in America where enterprising spirit was essential to survival. In contrast to Britain’s Kennel Club founders, almost none of the groundbreaking pioneers on this side of the pond were wealthy enough to forego that pesky distraction of earning a living. Judges, show superintendents, kennel club bigwigs–they all juggled multiple careers for in- come like journalism, breeding, brokering, and han- dling to name a few. To a certain extent it was opportunism, but mostly it was a practical necessity because no particular niche would provide a reason- able income for many years.

Although that multidimensional participation in- vited some obvious problems and complications, it also demanded thinking outside the box. It’s easy to overlook how much of the dog world’s progress has come via those unconventional and frequently controversial routes to success. This small slice of history provides a nice example.

In the AKC galaxy, Dr. Frank Booth is best remembered as a popular all-rounder of the ‘70s, the first veterinarian to earn that status. That was the tip of the iceberg. Booth started in Airedales and Wires in the 1920s, taking his St. Joe kennel prefix from the St. Joseph river near his Elkhart, Indiana home. Shortly after World War II he helped found Central States, a club de- voted to promoting the Wire Fox Terrier. It was a direct response to the breed’s waning popularity, especially in the Mid- west. Booth judged Central States several times and served in every office including president. Though interesting and impressive, it definitely was not his mainline in those years.

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Posted by Alex on Oct 24 2016. 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.