The princess strode with her tiny head held high, her shiny coat swaying above the carpet like a veil of chiffon.
Spectators clapped and whooped, though she ignored the ovation, instead fixing brown eyes on her companion, 15-year-old Emily Dorma, a Grade 10 student from Vancouver Island.
It was show time for toy dogs on the green carpet inside Ring 7 at Madison Square Garden in New York. The Westminster Kennel Club was conducting its 136th annual dog show, which it describes as a combination Super Bowl and Academy Awards for “canine athletes.”
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A six-year-old female Havanese named Mistytrails Double Stuf’D Oreo, or Reo for short, was presented by the high-schooler. The dog had travelled from Cobble Hill to Manhattan, where she shared a bed in a room in the New Yorker Hotel. The art deco wonder made available grooming stations, treadmills and indoor potty areas covered by synthetic grass for its four-legged guests.
On judging day, those who qualified to be inside the ring showed impeccable grooming. They had been scrubbed and cleaned. Nary a hair was out of place.
The dogs, too, looked their best.
The Havanese, a toy breed known for a gentle disposition and kewpie-doll cuddliness, were rated by Sari Brewster Tietjen, of Rhineback, N.Y., a stern-faced adjudicator.
Looking over the scene was Bev Dorma, a long-time dog breeder and Emily’s mother. She fretted that the appraiser was overlooking Reo, Canada’s reigning female Havanese champion.
“The judge ignored Emily the whole time,” she said. “We figured we weren’t going to win.”
Indeed, in a video of the judging posted by the kennel club, the judge barely glances at Reo, instead surveying the other little dogs with an unblinking gaze.
“She had poker face on,” Ms. Dorma said. “Later you realize she was looking for her second-, third- and fourth-place winners. After her first going over and watching [the dog] move, she knew Reo was her winner.”
Indeed, the judge chose Reo as the show’s best in breed, a decision popular with the crowd.
“When she pulled Reo out of the front of the line, my whole body went into this shaking,
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