PHILADELPHIA AND DOG SHOWS

The close we get to the holidays, the harder it is to find a dog show, but we manage. The weekend kicks off on Thursday with the four day Philadelphia Cluster in Redding PA. Despite being in one of the most populous areas of the US, expect a smallish entry, especially on Thursday and Friday. We don’t see the logic in it. There are plenty of fanciers in the area. It’s centrally located. The weather hasn’t turned nasty yet. It has become something of an American tradition that if you name your club or circuit for a great American city, then you must look for a show hall in some place other than the great American city. Here’s an idea for you elected officials, if a dog show is named after your city, embrace it. Promote it. Give it sponsored status. Do you know of anything that will bring your citizenry together like the love for dogs? You politicians are missing a big opportunity here. Next year, we expect to see bigger entries. We knew that soap box wouldn’t stay stowed for long.

Benjamin Franklin, Philadelphia's most famous citizen,

Owned a Newfoundland

Meanwhile up in New England we have a four day cluster, the Thanksgiving Classic in West Springfield MA , starting on Friday. Centrally located between New York and Boston, this will be the largest entries this weekend. Expect entries over 2,000 Saturday/Sunday and up to 1700 Friday and Monday. The towns of Stockton and Turlock CA are due east of San Francisco along the I-5 corridor, which means that folks from Mexico to Canada have easy access to the four shows hosted by the Golden Valley Kennel Club of Turlock and the San Joaquin Kennel Club of Stockton. However, don’t anticipate huge entries, but entries in the reasonable 1,500 range. Hopefully, the fires ravaging SOCAL will be under control by this weekend.

Elsewhere in the US there’s a three day weekend of shows in Montgomery AL and two day events in Belton TX, Crete IL, Tallmadge OH, and Naples FL. So get out there and support your local dog show and then come back here and find out what happened everywhere else.