“Sorry, sorry,” apologized Gillian Irving, before turning to her dog named Handsome, who was not sorry. “You are very naughty.”
For the 148th annual dog show, which began on Saturday, more than 2,500 dogs representing 2oo breeds and varieties invaded Queens. Many of the owners, handlers and canines come from outside the Tri-state area and rely on the same tourist infrastructure as the more traditional visitors.
When show dogs aren’t trotting around the ring, they retire as pets in hotels fully stocked with treats and chew toys purchased for them. They travel by shuttle bus or private vehicle to the competition site at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, or take a ride to Brooklyn or Times Square for a special adventure. Several times a day, they are sniffing out the local sights.
“I think dogs love Queens, and people who attend are going to find out how great Queens is,” said Rob MacKay, president of Queens. Queens Tourism Board. “I’m really excited for the show, which is kind of crazy because I’m a big cat person.”
The neighborhood hotels have definitely risen to the occasion. tea Vocu Fiorello-LaGuardia Est, which opened last September, built a special dog run for its guests. He also set up a custom shuttle to transport dogs and their people to the tennis center and loaded up on “pet relief items,” the couth term for poop bags, for the front desk.
“We have those available, and we still have our staff on site,” said Stephanie McCabe, the hotel’s director of sales. “Our housekeeper or our lobby assistant could take care of any accidents that happen on the fly.”
Since the brand’s inception in 2005, Aloft, which is part of Marriott, has provided pet-friendly amenities to all guests through its program, Arf. On Monday, Lawrence Hou, the general manager of Aloft’s LaGuardia Airport location, took a seat on the same purple couch where Dozer was snoring and snorting the day before. He said that last year, the hotel added its offers for its Westminster patrons. The staff tore out the bushes and built an L-shaped dog park with artificial turf and a tiny red hydrant. It also features dog treat bowls like a consummate cocktail host.
However, Hou said, they discovered that the owners of the show dogs are picky about dog snacks, and an employee ended up taking home the leftovers. This year, he got back on the cookies – two bowls full from the front door – but not the hospitality. He said the chew toys that the puppies hit.
The 148-room hotel, which sells the 50 rooms blocked for Westminster, limits each guest to two pets per room. Hou had a sneaking suspicion that a visitor was flouting the rule. He had heard that one chief kept four dogs and perhaps even more. But he had no intention of intervening.
“We don’t want to take them out,” he said diplomatically. “She’s leaving tomorrow, so there’s no point in bringing her.”
There is also no guarantee that the show dogs will be back in Queens next year.
For more than a century, the Westminster Kennel Club hosted the country’s second longest running sporting event in Manhattan. The winners of the seven groups (herding, toy, sporting, non-sporting, etc.) were voted for “Best in Show” in the historic Madison Square Garden. Many of the dogs and their owners and/or handlers stayed in Midtown. So did many spectators and dog lovers, who booked the same hotels so they could hobnob with the competitors.
The pandemic has changed traditions. In 2021, the Westminster Kennel Club moved the show to the majestic Lyndhurst Mansion in Tarrytown, NY Back next year. The event only landed at the National Tennis Center in Queens last year (the venue is also home to the US Open), and rumor has it that the show could boomerang back to Manhattan in 2025. It may also resume its traditional time in February. , an ideal month for courageous Tibetan mastiffs but tough for hairless Xoloitzcuintli.
For now, however, the Westminster shuttle route passes through several Queens hotels. In addition to the Aloft, buses also pick up and drop off at the Hampton Inn New York-LaGuardia Airport, the New York LaGuardia Airport Marriott and the LaGuardia Plaza, which waived its no-pets policy for the event .
About 80 percent of the Plaza’s guests participate in the show, according to the hotel. The property has designated four pet-relief stations and bulk staff, including parking security to monitor larger vehicles that are part pet mobile home, part pet shop, part pet salon. During staff sensitivity training, employees learned proper etiquette to address four-legged guests. They are not “animals” or “this dog”, but the happiest “your furry friends”. On Wednesday, the hotel will resume its ban on animals.
Dining options are slim from the airport, and the Plaza’s restaurant, Elements, has become the default meeting place for many dog owners and handlers. On Sunday evening, purple, a color of Westminster, was the primary color of clothes.
Three friends from the state of Washington sat in a cozy corner of the restaurant. The white tip of a curled tail from under the table. Julia Rylander, a repeat Westminster rival, was showing her Siberian husky, London Fog; Bailee Lewis handled a Tibetan Mastiff; and Kathi Ogle was making her debut with Henry, the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel resting at her feet.
“It’s been my dream for 15 years. I’ve been here to support others and encourage friends,” Ogle said, pressing her fingers to her eyes to hold back tears. “It’s my Olympics.”
The trio said they make small adjustments to their rooms to be good dog parents and excellent guests. Rylander turns the thermometer low for his dog in double fur. “We’re packed,” he said of the less isolated travelers. Ogle brings his towels, hair dryer and bath fur trap for Henry.
“We don’t want to lose the privilege of staying here,” Ogle said.
Dinner came and Henry’s head popped up like a gopher, his little black nose inches from the spread. He was a professional and he knew how to play this moment. He fixed his round eyes on the plate of chips and waited patiently and patiently.
“Do you want to take a picture with them?”
On Monday morning, the first day of the group’s race and competition, the shuttle bus pulled away from the Aloft carrying a beagle (on his person’s lap), an Australian Shepherd (riding in his placed as a proper carrier), an American Eskimo dog. (on the floor, in those white ones!) and a Beauceron, who struggled to find a comfortable position for his 90 kilo frame.
In the back, a group of former judges couldn’t help but judge. They criticized the planning – it was a “bit long” – and the trip to the stadium.
“It takes 70 different ways to get to the same place,” said a former officer named Phil.
When a rider asked him for his Best in Show predictions, he agreed that the winner would not be a sporting dog. On the way, Laura Reeves, host of the Pure Dog Talk podcast, offered some unsolicited advice.
“The number 1 rule of Westminster is: Don’t buy dogs without asking,” he said sternly.
Of course, this courtesy and caution applies to all dogs, including those with a unique name and not a seemingly meaningless string of words. The owners are surprisingly generous with their pets, especially when they are off-stage and at the facility.
“Do you want to take a picture with them?” Kathy Wright asked me, as I watched her pair of Scottish deer in the lobby of the Hampton Inn.
With his permission I scratched the gnarled heads of Fiddish and Cooper, who had enjoyed a breakfast of cheese and egg in bed that morning.
“I’m on the floor on the dog bed,” joked Gary Wright, their co-owner. “Just give me a pillow and a blanket.”
The owners of Sebastian, a Great Pyrenees flying in first class from Northern California, invited me on their field trip to the self-service Astoria Dog Wash. Last year, they showed up in the afternoon and had to wait in a long line for their turn. This year, they decided to go ahead of the crowd. We arrived before opening and found a cafe with enough space for Sebastian to spread out without snarling sidewalk traffic.
At the installation, Sebastian stood in the bathroom like a trapped bear while one of his owners, Christine Palmer-Persen, got to work. While washing, rinsing, brushing and drying, several dogs came, washed and left, including two Bernese mountain dogs, a golden retriever (a regular, not a show dog), a flat-coated retriever and a 150 Leonberger kilos that had just arrived after a 46-hour journey from Vancouver Island in British Columbia.
Even after 45 minutes under the dryer, Sebastian was still wet. Palmer-Persen slipped a bib over his giant head, which was now floofer after the salon treatment, and covered it in a glittering gold coat that trailed a heavyweight champion. He would end it with the hair dryer in the hotel room, which, unlike the dog wash, did not cost $5 for every five minutes on the free 15 minutes.
“It would cost a fortune to dry it,” said her husband, Steve Axelrod, as he paid the nearly $50 bill.
The benefit of staying in the triangle of the Westminster hotel is repeatedly bumped into the same dogs and owners. In addition to receiving more jokes and face licks, owners share their dogs’ results.
Fiddish and Cooper put the best of the opposite sex (the male winner to the female) and select (similar to the winner), respectively. Henry made the finals in his race. Sebastian’s coat finally dried and he won best of breed, advancing to the working group competition.
On Monday night, I sat at the Marriott bar with two women from Georgia showing their Australian shepherds. Neither dog had made the cut. Several TVs were tuned into the event live.
After the judge chose the winner of the toy group, a Shih Tzu named Comet, the contestants finished their beers and went back to their rooms to comfort their pets.
