You've seen dogs looking adorable, you've seen them with their humans, you've seen them getting groomed, and you've seen Swagger—here's your last chance to get a glimpse of what it's like behind-the-scenes at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. There are certainly a lot of odd characters to be found trolling around the cages, looking for a chance to get some face time with one of the breeds—as we overheard one woman say backstage at the Garden: "Technically, I'm allergic to dogs, but technically I don't care."
This year, the preliminary rounds were moved to Piers 92 and 94 near W 55th Street—things there were pretty chaotic and noisy, with thousands of dogs on top of each other in an airport-like setting. You could feel some tension between owners as they battled for space for their pups. The winners of those breeds were then brought to MSG in the evenings for the televised competitions, and things were decidedly less crowded there. While it smelled like a barn at the Piers, the only unpleasant smell backstage at the Garden was the mix of contradicting perfumes.
The crowds aren't all dog tourists and weird fellows in purple shirts though—we met Erin from Long Island, who brought her 6-year-old daughter Maya (see photo #2) to the show for the first time as a kind of immersion therapy. She told us maya was "terrified of dogs," so they were hoping this experience could show her that there was nothing to be scared of—except maybe some of the weirder humans there.
So click through to see some of those aw-struck children and strange people, along with scenes at the Garden moments before the dogs and their handlers went out for the big show.
