Westminster show's canine athletes get their piece of Super Bowl weekend

New York — 

They're astatine the apical of their sport. They run, weave and spell airborne. And they went each retired for this weekend's championship.

Sorry — no, they're not the Chiefs oregon the Eagles. They're the agility dogs astatine the Westminster Kennel Club show, which began Saturday by showcasing agility and different canine sports.

Dog people often telephone Westminster the Super Bowl of canine shows, and the examination mightiness beryllium particularly fitting this year. The United States' astir prestigious canine contention opened connected the aforesaid play arsenic pro football's Super Bowl, which features the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles connected Sunday. The uncommon coincidence comes aft some competitions' dates shifted successful caller years.

"I ever said I wanted radical to telephone the Super Bowl 'the Westminster of football,' " quipped canine adept David Frei, who has a ft successful some worlds: He utilized to enactment successful publicity for the Denver Broncos and the San Francisco 49ers.

The Westminster of football? Well, Westminster is 90 years older than the Super Bowl, aft all.

And determination person been immoderate different connections betwixt the gridiron and Westminster's greenish carpet. Los Angeles Chargers antiaircraft extremity Morgan Fox co-owns a French bulldog who came wrong a smushy-nose magnitude of winning astatine Westminster successful 2022 and was a finalist the pursuing year. (Many different NFL players besides person dogs for fun, if not for show, including Kansas City backmost Patrick Mahomes.)

Whatever the analogy, being astatine Westminster was a triumph for Guster the rescue pug. He and proprietor Steve Martin took up agility aft Guster started wagging his process and tilting his caput portion they watched the Westminster agility contention connected TV respective years ago.

"We ne'er thought we'd beryllium here. And present we're here," Martin, of Austin, Texas, said Saturday.

A borderline collie named Vanish won the contest, which featured astir 300 champion-level canines.

"She's precise intuitive, precise earthy — astir apt smarter than me," handler Emily Klarman of Doylestown, Pennsylvania, told a Fox interviewer successful the ring. While Klarman said the triumph initially near her speechless, Vanish had plentifulness to say, barking enthusiastically.

A peculiar grant for the champion mixed-breed rival went to Gable, handled by Kayla Feeney of Lima, New York.

Westminster added agility successful 2014, marking the show's archetypal lawsuit with mixed-breed dogs since the 1800s. Last twelvemonth saw the archetypal mixed-breed agility winner, a borderline collie-papillon premix named Nimble, who competed again this year.

She's an intentional blend of 2 apical agility breeds. But the athletics besides draws rescue dogs specified arsenic an Australian cattle canine premix named Sawyer, oregon Soy Sauce for short.

His owner, Dr. Amy Ondeyka, has a analyzable enactment docket arsenic a New Jersey exigency country doc and EMS aesculapian director. But she made clip for agility aft realizing she'd adopted a super-energetic canine who opens cabinets, unzips things and different causes home mayhem erstwhile bored.

"He's ever breathtaking — helium does ridiculous things," Ondeyka said arsenic helium intermittently leaped into her arms during what was ostensibly down clip betwixt agility runs. "We person fun, careless what happens."

While immoderate dogs bash agility to pain disconnected energy, the athletics helps others travel retired of their shell. Tully, a lanky, shaggy, mostly Labradoodle mix, utilized to beryllium "afraid of the world" but present is excited to spell to agility classes and competitions, proprietor Carla Rash said.

Saturday's competitors were a spectrum of dogdom, from a large Dane to a 7-pound (0.9-kilogramg) papillon, and they included specified lesser-known breeds arsenic a ample Munsterlander and a Danish-Swedish farmdog.

They navigated jumps, tunnels, ramps and different obstacles arsenic handlers gave manus and dependable signals. The entity is to beryllium the fastest, without making mistakes.

Regardless of scores, immoderate dogs won cheers from spectators. There was a bichon frise with its process dyed blue, a modular poodle that took a leisurely trot crossed an A-frame ramp, and a curly-coated premix that seemingly had 2nd thoughts astir the weave poles, circled astir and went done them again.

Westminster's traditional, breed-by-breed judging happens Monday and Tuesday, capped by the coveted champion successful amusement prize Tuesday night.

That's for purebreds only, but mixed-breed dogs besides were eligible for Saturday's obedience competition, an lawsuit that Westminster added successful 2016. The apical prize went to Willie, an Australian shepherd who besides won successful 2022 with handler Kathleen Keller of Flemington, New Jersey.

Steve Wesler sported a Philadelphia Eagles sweatshirt arsenic helium cheered connected spouse Jennifer Weinik and Cookie, her Belgian Malinois. They came distant with a ribbon, which Wesler deemed much breathtaking than the Super Bowl — due to the fact that helium was assured the Eagles would prevail.

There are nary currency prizes astatine Westminster, but the agility and obedience winners each get to nonstop a $5,000 donation to a grooming nine oregon the American Kennel Club Humane Fund.

The amusement besides featured Westminster's archetypal objection of flyball, a canine relay contention that involves retrieving a ball.

"It's a batch of organized chaos," Hillary Brown said aft competing with her Boston terrier, Paxil. His teammates connected a York, Pennsylvania-based squad called Clean Break were a modular poodle, a borderline collie and a whippet-border collie mix.

"It's a blast. The dogs emotion it," Brown said.