New York – The Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show is the world’s oldest annual dog show. The show has been no less of that since 1877 time-honored Westminster Kennel Club organized and was initially reserved for hunting dogs – especially setters and pointers. The club was founded by hunters, hunters who met regularly at the Westminster Hotel on Irving Place and Sixteenth Street in Manhattan. The prizes at the first dog shows held in Madison Square Garden included such treasures as pearl-grip pistols.
Weird and beautiful pairings of humans and animals
The simply called Westminster Show, at the same time very elegant event, quickly grew, and other dogs were soon added. The only criterion for participation: you have to be thoroughbred. Because the number of participants is limited to 2500 dogs for reasons of space, only the best five dogs of each breed are invited, a ranking that is calculated from the number of prizes won at other exhibitions in the previous year. The Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show is an exclusive dog show, it gathers an illustrious, sometimes bizarre and weird crowd of dogs and people.
AP/John Minchillo
Neugotic scenery in Lyndhurst: Chet, this is the name of this sporty Berger de Picardie, jumps through a tire on the obstacle course.
This year the animal break did not take place in Madison Square Garden, but had been relocated to the fine, open-air country estate Lyndhurst in Tarrytown near New York due to the corona. At the weekend the time had come: At the 145th edition of the Westminster Show, 206 breeds from 50 US states, Puerto Rico and ten other countries met for the competition – the competition, which incidentally was also open to spectators, will still run this Sunday. Time for a little interim balance, there are already some winners, we can show one of them in our picture gallery.
But the impressions of the intimate human-animal pairings are much nicer. Above all, we wanted to capture them in our little animal show: Dogs and their owners: inside at the waving, flowing limit.
–AP/John Minchillo
Beauty and Grinding: Remedy, a Briard, is prepared according to all the rules of the art and apparently has an angelic patience.
–AP/John Minchillo
Dog Couture: The pug Matty Pugdashian (from) poses for the breeding evaluation. The joke on the edge is the distinctive mix in the name of pug and kardashian.
–AFP/Timothy A. Clary
A fleece and a soul: Barbara Becker and her Chow Chow are preparing for the show – to assume that she wants to encourage him.
–AP/Mary Altaffer
Yummy: Verb, a Border Collie, exuberantly licks the cheeks of its owner Perry DeWitt: The two won the obstacle race – the “agility competition”.
–AP/John Minchillo
Attention spicy: The finishing touches are put on a Bichon Frisé.
–AP/John Minchillo
A parade of grace: French bulldogs are presented to the strict judges, this is about “breed judging”, i.e. the evaluation of the breed.
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–AP/John Minchillo
Teamwork and Fitness: An Australian Shepherd with its agile owner.
–AP/John Minchillo
Beautiful hair is given to him: Seth, a long-haired collie, in the midst of the hairdressing fuss.
–AP/John Minchillo
Corona, Mask and Feines Resthaar: Venom is a Chinese crested dog.
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