NEW YORK -- Must love dogs.Really, really love dogs.The Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show spotlights the bond between people and dogs.
But reaching the United States' premier canine event also can be about another kind of love.“For me, it would be very hard to do this without somebody who was as vested in it as I am,” said two-time Westminster-winning handler Bill McFadden, who's half of a dogdom power couple.His wife, Taffe McFadden, handled the second-place winner in 2019, and she and Bono the Havanese were among past finalists who appeared Monday evening in a special tribute to Westminster's 150th annual show.Yes, the McFaddens — who met at a dog show in the late 1970s and married in 1985 — have faced and sometimes beaten each other at various shows.
And no, there are no hard feelings.“I think some of my best memories are watching Taffe win best in show,” Bill said Saturday while the couple readied for Westminster.
“If one of us takes the big ribbon home, it’s awesome.Doesn’t matter which one.”After starting with agility and other sports on Saturday, the storied show got down to its traditional business Monday.
Dogs ranging from teeny Chihuahuas to towering Irish wolfhounds started competing in the multi-round, breed-by-breed competition that leads to the best in show award Tuesday night.Some finalists were chosen Monday, starting with Zaida, an Afghan hound who has twice won the World Dog Show, a major international showcase.She'd never gotten this far at Westminster before, and handler Willy Santiago told the crowd he'd been waiting for “this day for all my life.”“She’s the dog that makes me feel everything can happen,” he said, choking up.Zaida's rivals will include a Lhasa apso named JJ, who won the massive AKC National Championship show in December.“He’s a show dog all the time,” breeder, handler and co-owner Susan Giles of Manakin Sabot, Virginia, said in an interview earlier Monday.
A Lhasa owner for 53 years, she sa...