After a four-hour bath, shampoo, combing and clouds of hairspray, young beauty Maggie is ready to face the world.
With a toss of her long head, the silky Afghan Hound flounced into the Westminster Kennel Club show, the Olympics of dog contests, held Monday and Tuesday at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
Along with 2,500 other canines from 170 breeds, Maggie sought the coveted Best in Show prize to be awarded late Tuesday.
“Isn’t she stunning?” handler Bobbi Kinley asked, leash in one hand, large comb in the other, and a can of hair-detangling spray close by.
But competition is always ferocious at this outwardly genteel annual occasion, watched by a sell-out crowd and millions more on television and the Internet.
Maggie, whose long back and long coat gave her the look of a moving shower curtain, was far from the most minutely prepared.
Shannon Scheer, 45, described bringing her Old English Sheepdog from its Manhattan hotel in special boots. “So his feet don’t get dirty.”
The dog, a mammoth bundle of white and grey hair named Beaumorning We Will Rock You — Iggy for short — sat placidly as Scheer combed and sprayed.
“He needs his belly washed, his face washed, some hairspray. Then he has a pee break. Then he’s ready.”
Over in the poodles section, groomers perfected the shaving pattern they call the “continental” — leaving the belly and face bare, with various bobbles known as poms and rosettes around the paws and the dog’s behind.
Groomers said poodles get about an hour in the tub, then four hours drying with blowers and brushes, before several days of meticulous trimming.
A black poodle named Champion Majessa Phoenix Song squirmed as Cindy Case, 32, used a delicate electric razor to apply the finishing touches.
“I think they like the attention,” Case said. “See him panting? He’s actually trembling. He’s very excited.”
The dogs that make it through local contests all the way to Westminster show are so well behaved that it’s rare to hear a bark in the cavernous arena.
One white poodle broke protocol by enthusiastically licking a passing AFP reporter, before a nervous handler shouted at the reporter: “Don’t touch. No!”
That nervousness — and the close control exercised over the dogs — reflect the high stakes and rumors of occasional skullduggery at an event celebrating its 133rd year.
“This can be a bit political to be honest,” a disappointed Bill Peacy, 69, said after his friend’s Irish Wolfhound Quest was beaten to the breed title.
Peacy and Quest’s owner Alice Kneavel, 61, based their suspicions on what they said was the less than perfect backside of the wolfhound that did win.
“Just you watch the rear end,” Kneavel said with a knowing wink. “Just watch. There’s a lot of politics in this.”
In the end, the dogs win and lose, but their human friends deal with the emotion.
Quest, who got a consolation Award of Merit, seemed oblivious to the machinations of the Irish Wolfhound world.
He folded his giant limbs, lay down, and licked at his paws, maybe thinking of the four or five cups of dog food and the entire can Kneavel said she gives him daily.
Scheer, the Old English Sheepdog handler, said there was only one thing she really wanted Iggy to avoid: peeing in front of the judges.
“Occasionally it does happen and then you’re mortified and you cry and it’s all live on TV,” she said. “He knows I’d kill him if he did.”