Pure Dog Talk Laura Reeves

Westminster Kennel Club Fashionista Advice
Host Laura Reeves is joined by Veronica Wolfe of Best In Show Clothes, talking about that *perfect* WKC outfit, hair, nails, makeup and more.

“So, you know Westminster, it is the premier dog sport event of the year,” Wolfe noted. “It is the second oldest sporting event in the nation only behind the Kentucky Derby and then only by two years. It's been going on since 1877. So you have to give some respect to the event. Very prestigious, limited number of dogs, the juniors invitation only.

“There's a few factors you need to consider. One is the event, of course. You know, and how do you get ready and how do you dress for Westminster? My first thought would be the way you get ready and appropriate for really any dog show. You're representing your breed. If you have a kennel, you're representing your kennel. If you're a handler, you're representing your client's dogs. If you're an assistant, you're representing your handler,

“So everybody should look professional, okay? So you need to have professional clothing and you need to have all the support factors that we talked about in our first podcast. You're going to be on national television by all the possibilities. If you're not on national television, then I'm sure your breed's going to be on YouTube, right? Yes. So have those good shoes on. Have the good support wear on. Don't skip the pantyhose on this one, that kind of thing.

“But you also need to consider the weather. You need to consider the location. Everything's not indoors anymore. So let's run down a couple of those things.

“The temperatures in May and New York are gonna be 71 high day, 54 low. That's average. So if you've got an eight a.m. ring time and now they're outdoors, right? You need to consider that. You need to dress appropriately for that eight a.m. ring time. If you've got to change later on because woohoo, you made it to groups, then you can plan for that. But consider the weather.

“It can be humid and it can be hot in May also so you'll want to consider that when you're debating between the Tahari suit versus the wool blend St. John. It can also be wet. The average rainfall in that area in May is 3.9 inches to give you an idea. In eastern Washington, that's like a quarter of our rainfall for the year. So prepare for that. Bring a raincoat. You don't want to, you know, have that beautiful suit or a silk blend suit, get water on it. So the weather you need to consider, the time of day, once the schedule comes out, you need to consider for what you're wearing.

“And then you've got groups and the finals for juniors, moves indoors. I would say be mindful that that indoor carpet is green. You might want to consider what you're wearing with that. I'd be careful of wearing a similar green. - One giant green blob. With that color, a lot of people love to wear purple to Westminster 'cause Westminster's purple and gold. But then a lot of people are wearing purple. So you need to be aware of that.

“I think blue and green always go really well together. Depending on your dog if you're of the mindset that you prefer to really stay in the background, grays, blacks and tans can go nicely with that color carpet. Certain red tones if you do the blue based reds and not the orange based reds, I think the blue based reds almost leaning towards burgundy would be okay with that.

“You want to present a very professional image without distracting from the dog and that the dog should be the center of attention. If you love bling and you want to wear it great. There is a love of bling in the dog show world and I sell a lot of bling online and in my booth. If you're not careful, I think it can be distracting.

“And juniors, can I address you a minute? Because I have a junior. You know, you or your parents do not need to go out and buy a six hundred to a thousand dollar suit for this show There are gorgeous Taharai, Le Suit, Casper. All those. You can...

Neonates Deep Dive: Caring for the Dam and Hypocalcemia
Dr. Marty Greer, DVM joins host Laura Reeves for a continuation of their ongoing conversation about neonates. The discussion today includes hypocalcemia and eclampsia, how much calcium to supplement and when.

“For some bitches, you need to continue (calcium supplementation) until the puppies are weaned,” Greer said. “It depends on the size of the bitch and the size of the litter. The smaller the bitch and the bigger the litter, the more you need calcium. It tends to be... in small breed bitches that develop hypocalcemia, eclampsia, that that tends to be an issue.

“We don't see it in Labs, Goldens, Rottweilers, you know, the big dogs, but in the little dogs, and you know, I mean little dogs usually under 10 or 15 pounds, dachshunds, terriers, some of those small breeds, we can see hypocalcemia. In those cases the bitch will start to run a low grade fever. The first symptoms are going to be that she starts walking kind of goose-stepping like real stiffly, associated with the calcium becoming too low and then her muscles developing this tetany.

“When the puppies are growing at about that two to three week time period, when the puppies are really growing fast, is when the demands of the calcium become the greatest on those small breed bitches and they just don't have the ability to mobilize enough calcium from their bones, their vitamin D levels are trying, but they just don't have the ability to mobilize calcium quickly enough.

“And this is why you don't want to give calcium prior to the time that the bitch goes into labor and has her puppies. If you give it during the entire pregnancy, then you tell her parathyroid gland, "You know what, you can just take a vacation. "You don't have to worry about this, just hang out." And then their calcium doesn't mobilize adequately.

“So you want them on a normal amount of calcium in their regular dog food, and then once they whelp, then that's when you can start adding the additional calcium in gel form, in tablet form, in powder form to the diet along with the puppy food to make sure she gets adequate amounts of calcium.

“The powder, the gel, those are all going to be fine and safe because the GI tract is going to only absorb and the body's only going to take in so much. So you're okay to be pretty aggressive. Now there's definitely some things that you have to be concerned about if you're giving (calcium) by injection. But if you're giving oral in the powder or the tablet form, you know the petcal or the revival or the whatever product you want to use, those are all absolutely fine to give. You have to really screw up to give too much. But it does make a big difference and you basically titrate it until you see the effect that you're looking for.

Greer touches on a variety of different topics in this wide-ranging conversation, so check out the entire podcast here.

Show Safe Launches for the Dog Sport Community
Host Laura Reeves is joined by Mary Dukes, Lindsay Fetters and Carissa Shimpeno to discuss their new grassroots launch of Show Safe. The organization encourages all exhibitors to take the Safe Sport program and offers a lapel pin to those who complete it.

“I knew about Safe Sport through my daughter, who's a professional horse trainer,” Dukes said. “And safe sport is a congressionally mandated program for all Olympic sports that came in after the multitude of abuses in gymnastics, swimming, diving, I could go on. So anyway, I was familiar with it because my daughter shows horses and since equestrian events are an Olympic sport, she has to take safe sport and a re -up every year. I got it in for the registered handlers program and then I always had wanted to expand it. I advocated to expand it to at the very least junior judges, but while I was an employed by the AKC I was never able to get that done.

“Everybody has a story. Everybody has a story to varying degrees. I feel like mine is relatively minor in the big scheme of things, but everybody has a story of being inappropriately touched, inappropriately propositioned, all that.”

“Historically when something happens people react and everybody wants to do something,” Fetters said. “But I feel like a lot of people put it off on somebody else. ‘The government needs to do this, the AKC needs to do this’… It's like we're upset about something, but we're saying it needs to be somebody else's mission.

“I sort of was reflecting on what can we do, what can I do, what can you do, what can we do as a fancy because I think if anybody can be united over something it's united over protecting our children.

“I don't know a single person who would disagree with the mission of let's do better for our next generation but it's hard to invoke change. It's hard to start a movement, it's hard to unite people as just one solo person, especially in our sport.

“My idea was basically, let's do a grassroots movement. Let's control what we can control. And let's let people know that this training and this option is out there. And instead of mandating or instead of controlling somebody or demanding somebody do it, because I think that that immediately puts somebody on edge, like let's say, ‘okay, look, this options out here, let's pursue it. And if you do, we want to let other people know we want to let juniors know. We want to let other people in our sport know that we've had this training and we're here to be a listening ear and we're here to provide support.”

“I guess I would have to say my biggest learning experience in what works and what doesn't work started last year,” said Shimpeno. “When we had a handler who had been to prison for raping his minor assistant and he was returning to the world of dogs. In my mind I thought well what a beautiful way to show the young people of our sport that we actually have their back. Why don't we try and make some kind of policy within AKC that says, you know, if you've been convicted of X, Y and Z, that we can't stop you from coming to the dog shows, we can't stop you from existing and we can't make you a better person. But we can send a message to our little people and men and women around the sport in general just saying this is not what we're about. We're going to take a stand and we're going to draw a line in the sand.

“A year ago, Mary actually said, you know, why don't we stop asking AKC to do this? And we do something ourselves. And my response in that moment was like, ‘because that's not right.’ We have to be the better people, like we have to make them do what's right. That mindset got me exactly nowhere at all.

“We have this large portion of people out there that are just stuck in the injustice of...

Tools to Help Protect Vulnerable Victims
[caption id="attachment_12816" align="alignleft" width="335"] Pam Bruce, judging in Orlando.[/caption]

Host Laura Reeves is joined by Pam Bruce, a 32-year veteran of the Toronto Police Department where she was a sex crimes investigator. Pam was also Canada's first acknowledged expert in this field.

With recent arrests that have dramatically impacted the purebred dog world, everybody's asking what the American Kennel Club is doing. Pam is the individual who has trained all of our AKC reps, staff and board members already.

Her presentation from which today’s podcast is drawn will be available to everyone in Canine College starting this month. Today's episode is an excerpt of this critically important presentation. Watch the full conversation HERE.

“We can all be empowered by knowledge,” Reeves said, “and the knowledge that Pam has to share is what is going to make us all more able to handle the situations that we've been handed.”

“Sex assault itself (is) intimate sexual contact with a person without their consent,” Bruce said. “And a young person does not have the capability of offering consent, the same as somebody that's vulnerable. (It may be) accompanied by force or even threat of force …

“It’s not for sexual gratification of an offender. It's all about power and control. But the big problem for us in our sport is it's living in the gray areas, and that comes from non-reporting. The first time an offender was caught is not the first time they offended. And when you speak to the experts about this, they say on the low end, the average of sex assaults that have been committed before an offender has been even on their radar is at least seven.

“So let me just drill down a bit with vulnerable victims. A vulnerable person can be identified as someone who belongs to a group within our society, so think of dog shows, that is either oppressed or more susceptible to harm.

“Anyone under the age of 18 years, or an older (person) who has an impairment due to physical, mental, or emotional function. One who is unlikely, unable, or incapable to report grooming, sexual abuse, physical abuse, or neglect situations.

“Now let it not be lost on anyone that the offender is the one that chooses the victim. And it's often for that exact reason that that person has a lack of capability and if they do have capability or someone to assist with that reporting, will they be believed? We must report on their behalf or assist them to do so.

“The bigger issue for us and for society is what about the undetected offenders? Due to non -reporting, we don't know what we don't know. Child victims know their offender 94 percent of the time.

“These people are our village, but there are victims in our village and offenders in our village and we know them, we love them. We believe we know their full being, but does anyone ever really know anyone?

“'Grooming behaviors' is the idea of a perpetrator forming relationships with children. If you see an adult and they're really not friendly with a set of parents, but they're spending a lot of time around their children, I periscope up right away. I want to know why or if it's somebody vulnerable, someone disabled. If they're helping them, that's wonderful. But there is a line that should not be crossed, which is the next point, testing boundaries. Perpetrators will try to test boundaries on your child's comfort level."

Kelly Lyn Marquis Shares Her Insights from the Masters
[caption id="attachment_12798" align="alignleft" width="368"] Kelly Lyn Marquis in the ring.[/caption]

Host Laura Reeves is joined by Kelly Lyn Marquis to discuss the stories in Marquis' new book Behind the Scenes of Best in Show: Intimate Moments with the Masters.

"When I started writing (the book)," Marquis said, "I was seeing some dissension, sometimes some frustration where I would hear people saying things about handlers doing all the winning and you know I really really wanted to show all of the work that goes into those wins.

"And even even for many of us that you see in the book, for so many of the masters, it's not about the wins. Actually, not one of them, not one of them, mentioned about the win being something that matters to them. It's the behind the scenes things that matter to them whether it's making their clients happy or the connection that they have with that dog. And that was a motivation.

In her conversation with Michael Scott, Marquis admits struggling to understand his thinking.

"...(T)o Michael, it is his job to handle the dog to the (best of his) ability and to bring that dog to the right judges. And he knows his judges well. He knows what they like, as did Gwen (DeMilta). (B)ut Michael's job was to handle. Well, there wasn't the messiness that I would see in Gwen, and that also was active in myself as well.

"So when I interviewed Michael and Michael said, 'My job is to handle the dog and to bring it to the right judges. Period.' And he even went on to say that, 'Look, it's a game.' And that really triggered me 'cause I thought, 'No, this is serious business!' And it isn't that Michael doesn't take it seriously, but he's very clear on what his role is as a handler.

"That was one of the things that really struck me interviewing Michael, was if Michael had been my mentor and if I operated and navigated the dog show world with Michael's mindset, how might my... my life be different? So that is one of the values that I think a reader can get from reading this book where when you see where someone's priorities are and how that shapes how they navigate the world...

"When it comes to the passion and the emotional attachment, I always give credit to the owner handlers and let them know that when it comes to my own dog, I have to have another handler show it because it gets messy.

"One of the things that I love about handlers that I think is a lesson for, well, even for ourselves to bring  out into the world, but we're masters of our emotion. It's like you, okay, we look at this, what do I need to be? How do I need to show up for this dog?

"And we're very clear about that. We have a very clear role and we're able to be in integrity and we're also able to look at that dog and go, okay, what's going on with you? You and I, we need to... make this work. We don't have the luxury to have an emotional moment,

"Which also gets me thinking about another motivation for my book. I wanted to show our humanity because when we're at a dog show, we need to be in business mode. We're not showing our... our feelings.

"You know, Michelle Scott talks about how difficult it can be for her at times, managing her expectations and how she knows she wants to make people happy. And it can be so disappointing when you're not able to make that person happy. But we can't show that we have to show up and we have to be professionals. But it doesn't mean that we don't feel things. It just means that we're in business mode, we can't be getting caught up in those places, but we do have feelings just like everyone else.

"Another motivating factor for me is this is our community. I'm looking around it it's scary it looks like a dying community. I believe that this is an underlying theme in my book as well is that we are people. There are people at the ends of those leads and...

What to Do at WKC from the Queen of Queens
[caption id="attachment_12785" align="alignleft" width="353"] Host Laura Reeves and Denise Flaim at Crufts '24.[/caption]

Denise Flaim, lifelong resident of Queens, joins host Laura Reeves with a personal guided tour of what to do while at Westminster Kennel Club, slated for May 11, 13-14 at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens.

“Queens is not like Manhattan, first of all,” Flaim said. “Queens scares people, I think because like all the boroughs, it's not laid out in a grid pattern …. OK, so there are street names, the streets curve and all this. Well, you know, New York is the city of neighborhoods. And if you know the neighborhood, you can find your way around. So I'm going to give you a couple of neighborhoods to go to.

“Let me preface this by saying don't drive anywhere people. OK? First of all, you're not going to find parking.  Second of all, you have a 37% chance of being involved in an incident of road rage... And then you've got to know how to parallel park.... So take an Uber. They're everywhere.

[caption id="attachment_12783" align="alignright" width="437"] The Parkside in Queens is a historic Italian restaurant.[/caption]

“First of all, you've got the Parkside restaurant, OK? Parkside Restaurant is probably one of the few remaining white tablecloth, red sauce, old Italian restaurants. It's phenomenal. You go in there, you order a glass of wine or carafe of wine and you get your eggplant parm. And it's going to be very New York. It's going to be lots of neighborhood guys. It's going to be a typical New York City Italian restaurant. The likes of which has basically been eradicated off the face of the earth. But this is the real deal.

[caption id="attachment_12782" align="alignleft" width="536"] Bocce games in Spaghetti Park are quintessential New York.[/caption]

“After you have your amazing meal at the Parkside, you're going to go one block to the Lemon Ice King of Corona, from which that television show got its name, and apparently it's been featured on The King of Queens or whatever. You're going to order. You don't have to just have a lemon ice. You could have a spumoni ice. You can have a chocolate ice. It goes on forever and ever. Pistachio, my personal favorite. Then you're gonna take your ice …. and you're going to go across the street to what is called Spaghetti Park. In the right weather, you will find the Bocce courts above, with septuagenarian and octogenarian Italian men in their slouchy sweaters and their caps playing Bocce. You will then not disturb the bocce play just because that's not going to end well. You're not going to ask to play, but you're going to watch because really, that, is New York.

“Now for something completely different. Flushing, Queens. You can go to Chinatown in Manhattan. But just as amazing is the Chinatown in Flushing, Queens. And I want you to go to a place called the New World Mall … on your right you're going to see this Asian supermarket that's got everything. I don't want you to be distracted by the supermarket. You can get that on the way up. I want you to go down the escalator. To the subterranean food court that has every (food) you could possibly want, every cuisine.

“It has Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, Taiwanese. You name it, it's there. You can get pho. You can eat bullfrog. There are all the amazing Chinese aunties making hand done dumplings, hand rolled. Bubble tea, the whole thing. OK? It is amazing. You would never know that it is there.