NEW YORK (AP) — To the casual viewer, competing at the Westminster Kennel Club dog show might look pretty simple: Get a dog. Groom it. Pose it. Lead it around a ring.
But there’s a lot more involved in reaching the pinnacle of U.S. canine events, now in its 148th year. It’s a year that has been challenging for the kennel club: the show chairman died last fall and a planned judge was charged in March with possession of child sexual abuse materials.
Here are the ins and outs of Westminster, which is set to start Saturday with an agility competition at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York:
Over 2,500 dogs from 200 different breeds and varieties, which are subsets of breeds, signed up to try for the best in show trophy to be awarded Tuesday night.
Hailing from every U.S. state and countries from Chile to Thailand, the lineup includes such familiar breeds as French bulldogs and Labrador retrievers, rarities such as Azawakhs and Norwegian lundehunds and a newcomer, the Lancashire heeler. Chihuahuas are this year’s best-represented breed, with 49 entered.