The National Dog Show is giving us some sense of normalcy in 2020 … COVID be damned.
The Kennel Club of Philadelphia kept the Thanksgiving Day tradition alive with its annual dog show … though things did look a little different out there, and understandably so. There was no crowd to cheer on the pooches prancing and strutting their stuff on the floor.
The winner this year — a Scottish Deerhound named Claire. Congrats to the doggie!!!
And, without a crowd, it looks like the KCP borrowed a page from pro sports teams … using cutouts of dogs and their owners to fill the seats. Those who bought cutouts were also supporting a great cause … with proceeds going to the AKC Pet Disaster Fund.
The show — which aired on NBC after the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade — complied with COVID-19 safety protocols to pull off the show, which is remarkable in and of itself.
The humans wore masks. As for the dogs … there’s usually around 2,000 competing, but this time around only 600.
Instead of two shows over the course of the weekend … there was only one show split into two days, which were filmed on November 14 and 15. Despite all of these restrictions … the show still managed to introduce 3 new dog breeds — the Barbet, the Belgian Laekenois and the Dogo Argentino.