Kaia, Gigi, and Naomi are some beautiful bitches. The Kaia I mean is not Gerber, but a young boxer in a pink tutu and matching bow collar.
Was she named for the supermodel? I wonder. She was not, her mother says, “But she absolutely could be one.” In fact, Kaia hopes to join the dog show circuit next year. (Gigi, meanwhile, is a Pomeranian, and Naomi a Briard.)
These ladies are just a few of the 1,000-plus dogs who powered through the two-day American Kennel Club Meet the Breeds extravaganza, the country’s largest canine convention, which serves as a kind of amuse-bouche for the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show in mid-February.
I attended the tail-end of the event on Sunday—my almost three-year-old daughter, Alice, in tow—intent to scout future Dogue cover stars, or, at the very least, inspiration for Dogue cover breeds.
On the main floor of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, booths featuring over 100 dog breeds—organized alphabetically, from Affenpinschers to Yorkshire Terriers—snaked up and down the hall. People swarmed in every direction: babies, the elderly, plaintive children negotiating dog acquisitions with their parents. (“No, I will walk it, every day.”) A bar sold radioactive pink Paw Punch, while the kids’ area looked a lot like the small hounds’ obstacle course, except with more face-painting and balloon dachshunds.
Much like in speed-dating, each booth boasted three adjectives about the breed in question (Jack Russell: friendly, clever, athletic; Pekingese: affectionate, loyal, regal in manner), as well as decorations evocative of their provenance. (Dutch flags, fairy lights, and clogs for the Drentse Patrijshond; carved giraffes and zebras for the Rhodesian ridgebacks; a Scotch plaid blanket for a pearl-necklaced Scottie named Sigrid.)
At one point, a sleepy Pekingese took notice of Alice’s baby doll. (It was only when the dog’s head popped up that I realized the part I had been petting was his bottom.) “Oh, honey, you may need to take that away from here,” his parent said apologetically. “He is fixated on that baby.” His name was Armani and I was fixated on him. Sadly, his siblings, Gucci and Prada, has stayed home in Barberton, Ohio.
I also noted that, like my favorite dog owners in Central Park, many of the breeders shared an uncanny resemblance to their canines: the Norfolk terrier specialist with a tidy but wiry coif; the Saluki owner with an aquiline nose. But I wasn’t searching for human cover girls…
