Heartbreak and elation at the Westminster dog show

NEW YORK — Michael drove all the way from Alabama for this. Well, technically, Brandi Murray, the woman in a pearl-colored, sequined skirt suit running a hairbrush over Michael’s back drove him. Michael can’t drive, because Michael is a dog, and dogs don’t have opposable thumbs, which makes gripping a steering wheel difficult.

But Murray was more than happy to be the Finnish Lapphund’s chauffeur, because Michael’s big moment at the Westminster Kennel Club dog show in New York City on Monday was also Murray’s big moment: As his handler, she always has a vested interest in how brightly he shines.

So Murray brushed Michael near his little dog cubby, in the cavernous space of Pier 94 in Chelsea, as though he were a junior getting ready to go prom with a senior. She fussed over his tail, wondering out loud why it wasn’t standing up, then realized if she and Michael didn’t head over to Ring 7 immediately, they’d be late for the competition in which Michael had to prove to a judge that he was the most beautiful of all the Finnish Lapphunds.

The two of them took off, half-jogging over to the wide open expanse of green carpet where canine dreams of greatness either come true or shatter into a million pieces like a crushed-up dog bone.

I half-jogged along behind them. Murray looked back over her shoulder occasionally as she told me she’s been a handler for 18 and a half years. We dodged our way through the obstacle course of other dogs and similarly dressed handlers. Murray has seven Finnish Lapphunds, and she won “Best in Breed” in 2014 with a dog named Storm. She had high hopes for Michael, whom she started calling Michael once he was no longer a puppy; Michelangelo, his full name, just started to seem too long. I didn’t tell her that Michelangelo is a turtle name, not a dog name, because I didn’t want to be rude.

Now, forgive me if you’ve been to the Westminster dog show before and know all this, but I have to tell you what it feels like, as a dog person who hasn’t pet a dog in a while, to walk into a convention center filled with dogs. And not only dogs, but the best dogs, dogs that dog eugenics have deemed the most pure. The best comparison I can make is that it’s like that first really cold beer on a Friday afternoon at 4:30 after a long week. Or that bubbly happiness you get when you haven’t had a crush for a while and then go to a party and unexpectedly hit it off with someone. It is at once relief, comfort, and pure delight.

It is also very purple. Everything — the signage, the carpets, the lanyard my press pass came on — could pass for the trappings of a Prince tribute show. But, honestly, if you really want to know what a dog show is like, just watch Best In Show (a film widely regarded by film studies professors as the most brilliant cinematic masterpiece of all time). I can now confirm that it is spot on.

In my happily overwhelmed state, I lost Michael and Murray. I’d gotten sidetracked by the need to pet several other dogs and tell them how good they were, including a German Shepherd named Ridge and a foxhound named Jackson. I passed some dogs who resembled mops, a few who looked like they’d had their hair straightened, and one who looked like it were made of the tassels that come on graduation caps.

All the dogs I pet were very clean. You don’t realize how dirty most of the dogs your friends and family have until you pet one at a dog show.

The handlers at dog shows are all neat and clean, too, and they all wear suits, I learned on Monday. I asked a handler standing next to a bunch of coonhounds if there was a dress code, and she said, “everyone wears their Sunday best, you know what I’m saying?” She also said that many of them like outfits with “bling,” because it sparkles on camera. The amount of sequins around me proved her point.

When I finally got to Ring 7, a steward was telling Michael and Murray, along with seven or eight other Finnish Lapphunds and their handlers, that “we’ll have the dogs head in, and then the bitches.” I didn’t laugh, even when he said, “okay, now let’s get the bitches in.”

The judge, whose name was Mr. Walter J. Sommerfelt, stood near the entrance to the ring, but I wasn’t allowed to talk to him, the steward said, because he had no time. He was busy judging dogs.

I don’t totally understand how the judging of a dog show works, despite all the explanations I got from a few different handlers. However, Mr. Walter J. Sommerfelt appeared to check the dogs’ teeth, grab their haunches, pinch their tails, and then watch them and their handlers run around the ring, before ultimately awarding one dog “Best in Breed,” and then bestowing two others with second and third place.

But second and third place are not called second and third place; second place is called something that I can’t remember and that Google isn’t helping me find, and third place is called “select.” I learned this when one of the handlers, a 13-year-old named Emma Rodgers, corrected me after I congratulated her on her third-place ribbon. She is a young lady who is going places.

While Mr. Walter J. Sommerfelt poked and prodded Michael and his competitors, I made friends with Bienna, a Norwegian Buhund, and her handler, Amy Mclaughlin, who were waiting to enter the ring for the next round of judging after the Finnish Lapphunds. Bienna and Mclaughlin were from Seattle, where Mclaughlin works for a guy who shows people’s dogs for them. But Bienna is Mclaughlin’s own personal dog and a four-time “Best in Breed” champion, a record for the American Kennel Club.

I was starstruck.

“What is it like to be a celebrity dog?” I asked the smallish, white dog.

Bienna stared at me with her mouth open, but I don’t speak Norwegian Buhund, so Mclaughlin had to translate.

“She says, ‘I love it,’” Mclaughlin said, looking at Bienna then at me. “This is her life. She absolutely adores it. She also says, ‘Mom, I love this. I love the show ring.’”

I realized I’d been neglecting Michael. I turned around and was dismayed to see a different Finnish Lapphund sitting in the middle of the ring next to a basket of big yellow flowers as Mr. Walter J. Sommerfelt handed it a “Best in Breed” certificate. A photographer took the not-Michael dog’s picture as someone behind it tossed a rubber chicken in the direction the dog was supposed to look for the photo, so that the dog would actually look in that direction.

The chicken squeaked as it landed on the ground. The shutter clicked. The flash went off.

Murray and Michael stood next to the ring. They hadn’t won anything, and Murray was upset because Mr. Walter J. Sommerfelt had looked at Michael for a long time, which is usually a good sign, but in this case was simply false hope. I asked how she felt.

“I just never know what they’re thinking,” Murray said in her Southern accent. “It is nerve-wracking. It’s a lot of anxiety.”

She laughed and then sighed. Michael jumped up on me.

“It’s a lot of needing Klonopin and Xanaz,” Murray continued. “I’m gonna go to the hotel, and have a early dinner, and take a couple drinks, and go to sleep. I gotta get up early, I have to go to Pittsburgh to pick something up, then I have to drive to North Carolina and pick up two clients before we go back to Alabama.”

I asked if the clients were dogs. Murray said they were. I pet Michael one last time, and then he and Murray left the ring. He smiled, blissfully unaware that he hadn’t won, because he is a dog.

Then I turned my attention back to Bienna, who Mclaughlin had already paraded around. Mr. Walter J. Sommerfelt was pointing at Bienna, and I realized he was awarding her “Best in Breed!” For the fifth time!

Mclaughin picked up Bienna and squeezed her, then put her down and headed to the middle of the ring for the requisite photo next to the basket of yellow flowers. Winning meant that Bienna and Mclaughlin would be going on to the big event at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday night, where they’d compete for Best in Show. I thought of the greatness that lay ahead, and asked Mclaughlin how she felt.

“For Bienna, being only three months out of having puppies, and this being only her second show since September of last year?” Mclaughlin shook her head. “She showed like a rock star.”

I asked if Bienna had a statement. Mclaughlin bent down to pet her, and, I’m guessing, listen to what she had to say.

“She says, ‘Thank you so much,” Mclaughlin translated. “Thank you, so much, to all my fans.”

Update: Some people are telling me that second place is called “best of opposite sex” but I’m still skeptical.