Remarkable Markable

With 2,350 entrants, the annual dog show of the Westminster Kennel Club, held last week in Manhattan, was slightly smaller than usual. Notable for his absence was Pendley Calling of Blarney, twice judged best dog in the show, whose owner, John G. Bates, chairman of the Bench Committee, kept her retired to give other terrier fanciers a chance.

There were 23 piggish pugs but no bloodhounds. Partly because so many bloodhounds have recently been poisoned, singly or in whole packs, breeders are afraid to show their dogs.

There is always at least one moment of ridiculous melodrama in the Show. This came last week when the Countess Ida Marie von Claussen, who once challenged President Roosevelt to a duel, hurled a red ribbon at Judge Walter J. Graham. She considered that her toy poodle. Caprice, had been insulted by not getting the blue.

On the third day, judging by classes, breeds and groups had narrowed the Show down to six contestants for the final and supreme reward of Best in Show. They were:

Heather Reveller of Sporran, a Scotch terrier built like a midget plough horse, whose owner. Author Willard Huntington WTright ("S. S. Van Dine"), has kennels at Haworth, N. J.

A shambling English sheep dog named Snowman, his sad eyes and wide shoulders muffled in a cloud of smoky coat, who had been brought from Toronto by F. T. James.

Mrs. Jesse Thornton's champion Million Dollar Kid Boots, a trim, beady-eyed Boston terrier, best of the non-sporting group.

The Keuwanna Kennels' Keuwanna Titi, a Japanese spaniel with feathery fur and tiny birdlike feet.

George West's brindle and white greyhound, Gamecock Duke of Wales, who beat a beagle, a Russian wolfhound and a whippet in the final judging of his group.

Mrs. Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge's Nancolleth Markable, a British-bred pointer with light orange markings, a blaze on his head, a strong back, a deep brisket, and what his admirers consider the finest legs and feet ever seen on a sporting dog.

Justice Townsend Scudder, judging the six, singled out the pointer, the Scotch terrier and the greyhound. Nancolleth Markable scrutinized his handler, then his owner, then the judge. At a wave of applause in the last minutes of the judging, he faced around to give the crowd a solemn look. When Judge Scudder handed his handler the rosette for first prize, he gave a jump and sniffed. To Gamecock Duke of Wales went the trophy for the best American-bred dog in the Show.

Biggest dog show in the world (6,000 dogs) is Crufts, in London. Here, last year, Nancolleth Markable, bred by Mrs. Aimee Rowe, wife of a Cornwall farmer, was barely beaten for best in the show. Two weeks later, at Manchester, he beat the cocker spaniel who had nosed him out in London and has not been defeated since. In the last two years he has won 300 ribbons. As brilliant in action as he is in the ring, Nancolleth Markable last October won the South of England field trials. A month later, with his sister, Nancolleth Beryl, he was bought by Mrs. Dodge.

Most show dogs, as everyone knows, are bored by their existence. Not so Nan-colleth Markable. He came to the U. S. on the S. S. Bremen, sharing a stateroom with his trainer. In Manhattan, where a portrait of his great, great. Grandsire Flax was being exhibited by the Carlton Galleries, he lived, not in the odorous basement of Madison Square Garden with his confreres, but at the Lincoln Hotel, where he slept in a double bed with his head on his manager's shoulder. On land, he travels in trains or by airplane. He eats three ounces of cream for breakfast, three pounds of raw chopped beef at 10 p. m. If his weight--60 Ib.--or his spirits decline, he gets the whites of six raw eggs. For exercise, when showing, he takes two walks a day. While resting at the Dodge Giralda Farms, he will have 6,000 acres over which to roam, accompanied, for ten mile jaunts, by a lead boy or a jogging pony. Vain, assured and startlingly well-mannered, Markable is less perturbed than bored by being prodded in the show ring. Photographers cause him to sleep. From now till late spring he will be busy winning shows. In September and October he will have a circuit of county fairs, then a rest before the showing season starts again.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.