BO BENGTSON — Best in Show and Around the World in 50 Years
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First the book – Best in Show — The World of Show Dogs and Dog Shows (Kennel Club Books 2008 $34.95 or $69.95 special edition with slipcase) is an extraordinary 656 page, over 700 images, achievement.
Awards:
2008
Dog Writers Association of America – Winner, Best General Reference Book of the Year
The Alliance of Purebred Dog Writers – Arthur Frederick Jones award for Best Book of the Year
2009
Independent Book Publishers Independent Book Publishers Association – Benjamin Franklin Award Winner forBest Reference Book
The Alliance of Purebred Dog Writers — Best Author Award and The Stonehenge Lifetime Achievement Award
Plaudits (and there are many of them) include:
“This book is an absolute must have … unqualified triumph … “ Dog World, UK
“It became indispensable in about 15 minutes. It now resides within easy reach on our reference shelf … We can give a dog book no higher praise than that.” AKC Gazette, USA
“… the be-all and end-all book about dog shows” National Dog / The Ringleader, Australia
“… the most comprehensive history of our sport ever written, it deserves a place on every dog fancier’s bookshelf.” Peter Green professional handler and judge
Publisher’s statement:
“The most comprehensive history of dog shows ever written.”
Considering even the hundred years or so before Bo Bengtson’s Best in Show was published in 2008, it is hard to dismiss this as mere publisher’s puff rather than an accurate statement. Even including collective works, Lane, Drury, Compton, Leighton, Watson, Ash, Barton, Hutchinson, Vesey-Fitzgerald, Sutton and others are not its equal about dog shows. Checking biblios such as Jones and those in books like Ash, or catalogues such as those of the Peter Chapin collection, Gerald Massey and Doggie Hubbard do not result in discovery of a challenger. Indeed this is no reflection on the books themselves, or on books of the calibre of those written by Anne Hier and William Stifel.
Why is this? Bo Bengston explains in his Preface “In the torrent of new dog books published year after year, I have never seen a book that deals with dog shows in general. Some deal with specific aspects of purebred shows and the sport of dog showing: breeding, training, grooming, exhibiting, and judging. But how did dog shows begin and develop? Where are they heading? Which shows around the world are the most important? Who are the human players and the canine stars?”
Bengston writes that it didn’t take him long to find the reason that no such book existed. “… much of the basic information about this sport is surprisingly difficult to locate.” And so the odyssey started. He describes his book humbly as “… simply a book of facts and photographs about dog shows gathered from every source.”
In fact the book is much more than a book of facts and photographs. It is a magnus opus – an immensely readable and revealing book which has been written by a true renaissance man of the dog world and which could only have been written by such a person.
The book reflects Bo Bengston’s over fifty years of experience in all aspects of the dog world, his meticulous research and his use of materials that many did not even know existed. It also demonstrates a gifted writing ability combined with self-editing.
There are all sort of facts, thoughts, information and splendid photographs, most in excellent color reproduction. Bo Bengston is modest, really interesting and often fun to read. The book is simply outstanding.
The Introduction is sub-titled “What’s It About” ‘and contains the succinct reply to the 19 August 2008 BBC’s “Pedigree Dogs Exposed” program in England. “Much more than snob appeal, the predictability and variety that purebred dogs offer are their major selling points. When you know a dog’s ancestors, what it was bred to do, and what characteristics it is known for, you have a much better chance of getting a puppy that’s compatible with your lifestyle.”
I sometimes felt as if I was sitting at a dog show, with some really knowledgeable doggy person by my side telling me these fascinating and entertaining stories from first-hand experience, the like of which I’d never heard before. The person was modest yet spell-binding and entertaining, immensely well-travelled and seemed to have done almost everything in dogdom (most of it at first-hand and at all levels) over the last half a century.
Bo Bengtson’s work will surely be regarded for many years to come as the definitive book about dog shows and an almost impossible achievement for a single individual.
Around the World in 50 Years is a series of ten articles which started in the Dogs in Review magazine 2010 Annual and continued monthly until the last one in September 2010.
The articles are enjoyable, really interesting and well-worth reading. They also help to understand how Bo Bengston is probably unique in having been able to create his Best in Show book.
Each article’s title gives a good idea of its content and each starts with the words “Dogs in Review’s founder and Editor-at-Large looks back on 50 years of dogs and dog people worldwide.”
Part
- Around the world in 50 years
- “Anglomania!”
- Discovering America
- America by Greyhound Bus!
- From Chicago to Topanga Canyon
- The Santa Barbara Experience
- The Santa Barbara Experience
- Dark Winter Nights and the Wonder Down Under
- International Judges
- Dog Magazines Then, Now, Forever …
These were no rich man’s travels. In part 2 Bo writes “I traveled to England so often in those days that the British thought I lived there, and some even had the mistaken notion that I must be a young man of great personal wealth, in order to be able to travel to so many shows just to watch. (I was a penniless student, of course, and financed those trips by a wide variety of odd jobs, from substitute teacher to grave digger – honestly ! – and had to stay in some pretty grim bed and breakfast places for less than seven pounds 15 per night in order to get to those shows.)”
In part 8 Bengston describes how after six wonderful months in California in 1967 he spent some years in Sweden devoted mostly to breeding and going to shows all over Scandinavia “… and took on a series of truly odd jobs in order to keep the dogs in kibble … from night jobs in hospitals to a brief stint as a prison guard, from slinging manure at a pig farm to working on the fringes of show business.”
To quote a part of his publishers’ summary “Bo Benstson was born and educated in Sweden and has spent the past 50 years studying dogs worldwide as a breeder, owner-handler, and official for the World’s top dog shows – Westminster, Crufts, the World Show – and in many different countries … is the author of several critically acclaimed books about dogs in the United States and abroad … He has founded and published award-winning publications … “
The book Best in Show is an outstanding achievement and a delight to read in detail and to browse as well. Excellent color and black and white positives, quality, lay-out and design. Go to pages 175 and 176 for instance, with a lovely photo of Amanda West’s French Bulldog Ch Rolanda Ami Francine, placed among the top ten dogs for three years in a row in the early 1950s and who won 55 Best in Show and 175 groups, retiring in 1964. (P 548 also mentioned the dog’s picture appearing in the 7 February 1964 Life eight-page Westminster spread.)
At page 531 among the AKC Non-Sporting Highlights and beautiful color photos there appears Ch. Bandog’s Jump for Joy. The caption reads “For the first time in forty years, a French Bulldog was top Non-Sporting dog in 2004. Ch Bandog’s Jump for Joy is shown winning one of her sixteen Bests in Show that year at Central Indiana Kennel Club, handled by Larry Cornelius and under judge Kent Delaney.”
Throughout the book there are not only facts (sometimes startling) but often constructive comments which could only come from vast experience.
Please permit a concrete and detailed example:
At page 135 Bo explains “One cannot start judging Group competitions at AKC shows until one has been approved for all the breeds in this group – but once approved to judge even a single group, one may become eligible to judge Best in Show. This is one of the little-known facts that few people talk about in American dogdom – the anomalous situation that allows AKC’s top show award to be determined on a regular basis by judges who are not officially licensed to judge many (or most!) of the breeds competing for it. The reason is simply that there are too many shows and too few judges who are so experienced, ambitious, and knowledgeable that they become approved to judge all breeds. At present, less than 1 percent of the approximately 3,000 AKC judges are true all-rounders, approved to judge all breeds. Obviously, this situation requires a remedy, and it can be argued from both sides whether it is better to compromise on the requirements for Group judges, as is done in the United Kingdom, or to allow almost every judge approved for a single group to also award Best in Show, as in the United States.” (Bold added)
Earlier on the same page there is the statement that “Since the average breed entry at most shows consists of only 5 or 6 dogs, the judge may have to adjudicate as many as twenty-five or thirty breeds in a single day … Much of the difference that has appeared between the English type and the American type in some breeds can be traced directly back to the difference in the judges’ backgrounds, with the huge entries at British shows allowing more opportunities to breed experts to exert their influence.”
‘The Handlers’ chapter is another revelation. The United Kingdom has barely a handful of professional handlers. The United States has gone in the opposite direction, with The Professional Handlers Association having well over 100 registered members. Include all those who derive part of their income from handling and the number is well into four figures.
Page 166 tells you that clear of extra grooming expenses and depending on the breed, “expect to pay anything between $50 and $100 for a handler just to take your dog in the ring.” After more fascinating and inside detail, Bo puts it into proper perspective. “However, the unvarnished truth is that when expenses are deducted, it must be clear that no one ever became a professional dog handler to get rich.”
‘The Breeders’ chapter includes what every dedicated breeder knows. “Anyone who raises a litter should be satisfied if the puppies are all in good homes … and if the income from puppy sales covers basic expenses. The endless work is unpaid, literally a labor of love.”
The descriptions of the Grandeur and Skansen kennels on pages 197 and 199 will have you gasping out loud.
Throughout the book there is massive human interest. Florence Nagle bred Wolfounds (she owned, bred and handled the 1960 Crufts Best in Show winner) and field trial Irish Setters. She also bred, raced and trained thoroughbred horses at a time when the Jockey Club in England did not allow women to hold trainers licenses. The Kennel Club in England “… did not allow women to become full members – women were relegated to a separate ladies’ branch with no voice in general matters. Having tried to reason, unsuccessfully, with both organizations for a change, Mrs Nagle took both the Jockey Club and The Kennel Club to court for discrimination, and her success in these legal battles, after years of litigation, was instrumental in giving women equality in both the racing and the dog show worlds.” (A delightful color photo of Mrs Nagle, two of her Irish Wolfhounds and her equally splendid Bentley is on p 270.)
‘Dog shows and the Media’ was (perhaps ominously) Chapter 13. In fact it provides histories of dog periodicals, weeklies and magazines and quality reproductions of covers and something of the people and events that created them.
Adverts and the art of retouching, pre-computers, are shown on pages 551 and 552. The story of the whippet, lost the day after being shown in the 2006 Westminster show and never found, is set out for posterity. Films and TV are referred to, including the movie Best in Show. Bo comments that “… any veteran of real dog shows will notice that neither the dogs nor the characters are nearly as far over the top in mannerisms as many originals.” This is a gentle way of putting what has been said by locals in Australia and England.
The meticulous research and work is reflected in the various appendices and other indices and details which make up the last hundred pages after the chapters and which are well-worth looking through. Even Bo Bengtson’s writing about the “Two Camps : Anglo and FCI” is not dull. “The Anglo system is easy to understand for both participants and spectators and no doubt helped make dog shows popular with the public in the early days. The FCI version is more cumbersome and does not present a particularly exciting spectacle from ringside: watching judging at FCI shows can be about as enthralling as watching paint dry.” (p 558)
To try to do justice chapter-by-chapter to this book would require a small book in itself. Quotes and selections here have been arbitrary. The historical material and illustrations throughout alone justify the book’s reasonable and realistic price.
Believe the plaudits near the beginning of this review – acquire the book, enjoy – and have a look at some of the ten Dogs in Review articles if you can.
