I even got comments like, 'Oh, that's only a mixed-breed dog.' And I'd think, 'Well, yeah. "It was like you should just want to just crawl away, or feel like we shouldn't be there. "Certain people accept us now, but when we first started, people gave you looks like, 'Where'd that dog come from?' or 'Oh my God, what is it?" says Karen Profenna, the owner of Hailey, a Boston terrier/beagle (or "Boogle") mix. "But I just figure opinions are like noses - everyone has one," laughs Crime's owner Debbie Lazaro, an attorney from New Jersey.
#A mutt dog movie
(Jethro? Where's Granny?) Even the handler of a mixed-breed champion such as Crime - a 3-year-old with two entertainment agents who have landed him TV and movie roles opposite the likes of Tim Robbins and Lena Dunham of "Girls" - encountered some cool receptions. Or the Clampetts crashing a party thrown by the Vanderbilts. Some mutt owners say it sometimes felt like the Saps versus the Snobs.
In the beginning, especially, there was some tension afoot when the mixed breed and purebred fanciers met at AKC events. Many of the mixed-breed dogs' owners say their acceptance into Westminster proves that things have come a long way since the American Kennel Club, the umbrella organization that sets the judging rules that Westminster uses, allowed mutts into performance competitions in 2009 - long after some of the sport's other organizations did. Why, think what would happen if the likes of Edward Smigles, one of this year's Westminster agility mutts, toppled a purebred rival who's a 10th-generation descendant of Toto or Rin Tin Tin? Think the wild-card New York Giants toppling undefeated New England in the Super Bowl. Danny and the Miracles knocking off UNLV in the NCAA Tournament. Namely, the idea of some less pedigreed have-not toppling the haves. Barry Rosenīut as it is, the new arrangement still sets up the delicious possibility that fancy-pants Westminster could suddenly be gripped by the same storylines that have always provided some of the greatest drama in other sports. Kitty Norwood, president of the 26-year-old Mixed Breed Dogs Club of America, admits if she had her way there would also be a beauty contest to pick a Best in Show among mutts of different sizes, and then a duel pitting the winner against the just-crowned purebred Best in Show to pick an all-comers champ each year. The point is, mixed breeds are back at Westminster for the first time since they were officially disinvited over a century ago because their muddled bloodlines left no written conformity standard to judge them by.Ī total of 16 mutts - many of them rescues from animal shelters - are scheduled to compete Saturday in the agility field against 209 purebred dogs. So what if the mutts are competing against pedigree dogs in only one "performance" (or non-beauty) event: Westminster's first running of an agility course championship, which will take place Saturday at Pier 94 along the Hudson River? And who cares that it happens two days before the infinitely more famous "All Breeds" show begins to unfold 24 blocks away at Madison Square Garden for 191 eligible varieties of purebreds, culminating with the Best in Show award Tuesday? NEW YORK - The poodles trimmed like topiaries and the Komondors who look like four-legged Rastafarians, the Afghan hounds with their shimmering shanks of Jennifer Aniston hair and pint-size Maltese that are always gamboling three steps ahead of their handlers will have some different exotic company this weekend, now that the 138-year-old Westminster Kennel Club has decided to admit mixed-breed dogs - that's right, mutts! - into the nation's most celebrated and sent-up dog show.
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