Cute Doggies To Invade Pennsylvania In Nov.

I’ve seen media hordes around star athletes. I’ve seen media hordes around politicians holding hamburger buns in a reference to a 20-year-old catchphrase. (It was the LOLcat of its day.) I’ve even seen media hordes crowded around an anonymous guy in a giant shark mascot costume.

Before today, though, I had never stood behind a media horde attempting to photograph a group of dogs. Yes, that’s right, the above photo of photographers laying on the ground is because they’re taking photos of doggies who are drinking from martini glasses. (They’re drinking water.)

Today was a press conference for the National Dog Show, which is returning to the Pennsylvania Convention Center from November 15-18. I learned a bunch of facts about dogs and the dog show and the Philadelphia Kennel Club — did you know it predates the American Kennel Club? — today, but mainly I just looked at the doggies and went, “Aww.”

The press conference was fairly standard, except it was interrupted a few times by barking. The dogs also didn’t wholly cooperate; being dogs, there was a lot of butt-sniffing going on.

The cool thing about the National Dog Show is it’s a bench show, which means the dogs have to stay on benches in the building all day. And the public gets to walk in and chill with the doggies! Isn’t that awesome? And some breeds have as many as 50 dogs competing for Best of Breed. That means there will be tons of spaniels sitting around, looking cute. And there will be owners there ready to answer any questions about the breed. All in all, it’s a pretty good day.

The dog with the football-shaped head above is Rufus, who won Best in Show at the National Dog Show in 2005. Yes, there were dog celebrities at the presser, too. Also there was Miki, a standard poodle who won 88 Best in Shows and is now retired. (He also won the National Dog Show in 2002.) As you may know, those shortened names are just the dogs’ “call names” and they actually have ridiculously long registered names with the AKC. I am too lazy to type these names out.

Frank Rizzo’s chief of staff showed up and declared the days of the show would be the Dog Days of November in Philadelphia. Rizzo couldn’t make it because he was in City Council debating important things, like retiring Roberto Clemente’s number. (No, really. That’s what they debated in City Council today.)