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Tiny Pierrot of Hartlebury, best Pekingese (TIME, Jan. 30) and best toy dog, got swooping dabs from his owner's hairbrush as he bounced along. Close on his heels, in ridiculous contrast, stalked huge, brindled Great Dane Gunar von Hollergarten, best working dog. Then came liver & white Norman of Hamsey, an English Springer Spaniel who had barely beaten out famed old English Setter Blue Dan of Happy Valley for best gun dog. The ribs and muscles of snow-white Greyhound Boveway Beau Brummel, best hound, looked like delicately chiseled marble. His kinky jet hair and the crimson ribbon on his topknot made French Poodle Whippendell Poli of Carillon, best non-sporting dog, look like a Harlem belle. The sixth dog was a magnificent black & tan Airedale, Warland Protector of Shelterock, best terrier, just arrived in the U. S. after a long string of victories in England. A good Airedale pup can be bought for $35. Ringside gossip said that Warland Protector had cost his owner, S. M. Stewart of Montclair, N. J., $10,000.
In the centre of the ring, closely watching the proud and handsome dogs, was a proud and handsome lady, Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge, wife of Remington Arms Co.'s Board Chairman Marcellus Hartley Dodge, niece of John Davison Rockefeller Sr. She was proud because she had been chosen first woman ever to choose the best dog in the Westminster show.
Mrs. Dodge has more than 100 pure-bred dogs of eleven breeds on her 2,000-acre estate at Madison, N. J., where she holds an annual show of her own. In the past two years her dogs have won more best-in-show prizes than any other U. S. exhibitor's. Her pointer Nancolleth Markable was judged best dog in last year's Westminster show. Other fanciers were glad she was chosen judge this year because they consider her unexcelled in all-round knowledge of all dog breeds. They were also glad because the honor took her own formidable entries out of competition.
As the dogs went through their paces and struck statuesque poses, their handlers stroking their tails and composing their jaws, Mrs. Dodge eyed them, felt their flanks, examined their teeth. Her own taste runs to big dogs. She waved the Pekingese and poodle aside in a jiffy. The Spaniel went next. It took her only 18 minutes to put the Airedale in the winning stall, with the Great Dane and the greyhound unofficially second and third.
Few questioned Mrs. Dodge's choice of Warland Protector last week. Most fanciers consider him utterly faultless, the finest specimen yet produced of his comparatively young breed.*
*The Airedale originated last century when middle-class and laboring Englishmen in the Aire River Valley tried to improve the scent and watermanship of their local terriers by crossing them with otterhounds. First called Waterside terrier, the new dog was renamed Airedale in 1879.