Show Dog Handlers: A Breed Apart

It’s a blisteringly hot Sunday at the Fairplex in Pomona. Under the awning of Corky and Susan Vroom’s rig, a fan plays upon an English springer spaniel named Dylan as he gets a blow-dry. In minutes, he will strut his stuff in the ring for the judges.

Between them, the Vrooms will show 23 dogs today, among these Georgie the papillon, Bismarck the pug, Stella the Doberman, Jessica the Irish setter and a Bouvier des Flandres answering to Patton.

This is a four-day show, the Mission Circuit, and at show’s end they will have shown 81 dogs and collected 26 purple and gold ribbons for best of breed and 23 blue ribbons for first place in group or class.

The Vrooms, who live in El Monte, are professional dog handlers--not trainers, handlers. When “campaigning” a show dog, they may travel as far as Tokyo. They’re regulars at the prestigious Westminster Kennel Club show at Madison Square Garden, where their clients have included now-retired Tugboat Willie, the second-winningest pug in American Kennel Club history.

Married for 19 years, Susan, 50, and Corky, 58, met--where else?--on the dog show circuit. When Susan was 4, she was taken to her first dog show and, she swears, that’s when she made her career choice. At 18, she apprenticed with a top handler. Corky apprenticed with his father, also a professional handler, when he was 12. Apprenticeships are the standard entry into the field. There is no licensing or certification involved.

The Vrooms are part of a fraternity that is a world unto itself, one in which dog owners (or, often, wealthy patrons who “lease” top dogs from their owners for the duration of their show life) may spend $250,000 a year pursuing canine fame and glory.

“Money is certainly an enabler in this sport,” says Susan. Owners or “foster parents” pay to have the dogs trained, to have them shown and to have them transported from city to city, show to show.

A Vocation and a Way of Life

Dog handling is “not a normal occupation,” says Corky, who’s president of the national Professional Handlers Assn. “The closest thing to it is being a jockey.” Just as horse and jockey must be a good match, so must dog and handler. Beyond that, he says, “it’s about style and technique.”

“It’s choreography,” says Susan. “You need to be light on your feet, make yourself almost disappear, make that dog center stage.” A statuesque, blond former model almost 6 feet tall, she is known for looking elegant in the ring.

And she knows that clothes--hers--help make the dog. That means solid-color skirt suits, no busy prints, clanking jewelry.

“I try to stay away from long, flowing skirts,” she says, painting a picture of “this Chihuahua at the end of this billowing awning.” Showing a black dog, she avoids black so the dog won’t blend in.

In the ring, a handler has less than two minutes one-on-one with the judge. It’s sort of a dog-and-mouse game. If a dog has faults, the handler’s job is to conceal them.

Says Corky, “You pose your dog to make it look as close to that breed’s standard as possible.”

Adds Susan, “You always want to play up the stronger points, play down the weaker points.” Is the muzzle too long, the tail too short? “Sometimes the judges know what you’re doing. Sometimes they don’t.”

The goal is poetry in motion, not a wrestling match between dog and handler.

“If you get nervous,” says Corky, “it goes right down the leash and the dog says, ‘Wait a minute. There’s something wrong here.’ ”

Horror stories abound. Early in his career, Corky was showing a brace of Manchester terriers.

“That night they decided to hate each other on the floor of Madison Square Garden and got in a fight in the middle of the ring,” he says. “Naturally, I did not win. Luckily, they didn’t televise Westminster back then.”

A dog that attacks a judge will be banned from the ring for life. A dog that attacks another dog will be excused from that show. One of Susan’s ground rules when showing an aggressive breed: “Never let the dog make eye contact with another dog.”

Often, the Vrooms find themselves competing against one another for best of group or best of show. But, to avoid conflict of interest, they never show dogs in the same breed competition.

For the Vrooms, a relationship with a dog begins when the dog is brought to them for evaluation. Typically, the dog will have already had basic obedience training. The Vrooms will assess a dog’s mental, emotional and physical characteristics, and decide if the dog looks and acts the part of a potential champion.

Says Corky, “If a dog comes up the driveway screaming and yelling and throwing himself on the ground,” forget it.

Being beautiful is not enough.

“They have to think they’re good,” explains Corky. “They have to be Alpha. They have to say, ‘Here I am.’ A show dog with attitude will defeat the dog that walks around the ring thinking, ‘Let’s get this over so I can go home.’ ” The great show dogs have both heart and charisma--in short, star quality.

And they really seem to understand what is going on.

“They look right up into the judges’ faces, ‘Pick me. I’m the best.’ ” says Susan.

A dog may board with the Vrooms while they evaluate him, introduce him to the ring, determine if he’s a good traveler and has been properly socialized.

In the ring, handlers know, judging is somewhat subjective, with room for interpretation of AKC standards.

“If everyone saw it the same way, we wouldn’t have dog shows,” says Corky. “Say you have a dog with a certain fault, well, you avoid the judge who’s going to penalize heavily for that. We know where to take given dogs to show them,” and which shows to skip.

Some standards are somewhat ambiguous, such as “slightly longer.” One judge may zero in on the way a dog moves, while another looks at the set of the shoulders.

“Most show dogs inherently know how to stand,” says Susan, but must be taught through repetition to stand still and to pose. No handler goes into the ring without treats such as dried liver tucked into a pocket.

Some dogs simply don’t adjust to the show ring and are intimidated by the noise and excitement. With wonderful specimens, the Vrooms will try to make it happen, maybe taking the dogs to shows and letting them observe from the security of their pens.

In a typical year, the Vrooms will average 100 shows, mostly in the Western states, although they may show in Louisville or Detroit also. Next up is the Burbank Kennel Club show at L.A. Valley College this weekend.

In Defense of Canine Show Business

They have heard the criticisms--that dogs shouldn’t be paraded around rings to please people, that it’s wrong to “lease” show dogs to rich folks and, at career’s end, return them to their owners.

First off, they’ll tell you, dogs that become champions love what they’re doing and thrive on the adulation and attention. Those who don’t adjust have brief careers and return to their owners.

“They have to be happy and healthy in order to perform the way they do,” adds Susan. She points out that show dogs live well. They travel in air-conditioned rigs and live in climate-controlled conditions. Adds Corky, “If there’s a life afterward, I would love to come back as a purebred show dog.”

Dog leasing, they say, enables an owner (often the breeder) with limited funds to have a dog shown all over the country. At the end of the dog’s career, the dog usually is returned to the owner and bred, with the owner getting the puppies. And the dog? Corky says, “He gets to lie on their sofa for the rest of his life.”

Meanwhile, the “foster parent” has had the pleasure--albeit it an expensive pleasure--of winning. The true dog lovers are quickly separated from those throwing their money around to sate their egos.

Of the latter, Susan says, “it’s all about them. ‘How am I going to look on TV?’ They do not have a respect for the sport, for what we do, for the judges. They think money translates into winning. We know they’re going to walk away at the end of two years.”

For the handlers, it’s a seven-day-a-week, 24-hour job that includes boarding dogs for owners living far away. Typically, the Vrooms are on the road four days a week. Susan says that two people who are both handlers “have a better chance of having the marriage survive.” (Both Vrooms had first marriages to spouses outside the profession.) At the Pomona show, one Vroom slept each night in their trailer on the grounds to keep an eye on their dogs.

In the ring, they wound up competing against one another in hound group competition, Corky showing a black-and-white Borzoi, Susan a greyhound. Earlier, both dogs had won in breed competition, but they failed here to garner ribbons.

That happens to the best of dogs. Susan says, “You smile . . . and go back to your rig and kick a tire.” You don’t say something nasty to the judge because tomorrow is another show.

Earlier, Susan had scored a first with Annie, a black-and-white English setter.

“C’mon, young lady,” she’d said, leading the dog into the ring. There she was--on her knees, holding Annie’s tail high for the judge, who also examined the dog’s teeth and ran her hands over Annie’s chest.

“Congratulations,” said Susan, handing the dog over to owner Greg Wilkerson of San Dimas. “Here’s your ribbons. She needs to be dunked in a bucket of ice.”

Wilkerson hired the Vrooms because Annie “doesn’t show well for me. She has a soft temperament” and takes special handling. “I know [the Vrooms’] reputation.”

A handler’s fee per show runs $75 to $100 per dog. There are also overnight boarding fees, a grooming fee and fees for ringside preparations such as table bathing and blow-drying. For the latter, the Vrooms hire two assistants, paying each $100 a day.

When a dog wins, there are preset bonuses for the handlers, typically $100 for best in group (herding, hound, toy, etc.) and $200 for best in show--plus an occasional cash gift from an especially grateful owner whose dog has just vanquished a longtime canine nemesis. In addition to paying staff, handlers are out-of-pocket for kennel setup, supplies and a rig that can cost up to $100,000.

Handler-dog relationships are short-lived. On average, Susan says, “the course of a career is two years” for a show dog, and then “a new kid on the block starts to knock you off your pedestal.” Adds Corky, “You can show them as long as they’re breathing, but after two years judges start looking real hard to find some dog to put out your dog. You don’t want a dog that starts looking like a fighter who fights too long.”

Both show a number of breeds. Susan is tall and, she says, toy dog owners “like me because it makes their dogs look smaller,” a plus. The Vrooms enjoy the challenge of handling a dog from a breed perceived as ugly or less popular.

Terriers win a lot because of their feisty, outgoing, “Here I am” nature. By contrast, Corky says, there’s the bloodhound, by nature a “Who, me worry?” breed. He is currently showing a Havanese, a Cuban toy breed recently recognized by the AKC.

Some breeds, such as golden retrievers, always score high on the applause meter, which can influence judges.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s the worst example in the world,” Corky says. Bulldogs are crowd favorites just because they’re cute, Afghans because they’re dramatic.

A Purist Approach to Breed Standards

The Vrooms are critical of the way in which some breeds’ natural characteristics are altered to make them shine in the ring. For example, border collies and Australian cattle dogs may be trained to have a more elegant gait.

“It’s wrong,” Susan says. “Border collies are not supposed to be pretty.” When judges reward unnatural characteristics, breeders “try to breed it because they want to win.”

Handlers must be fit. Corky says, “Backs and knees go out” from all that bending and running. Susan shows a lot of squat English bulldogs so spends a lot of time on her knees. He’s blown a knee; she once fell in the ring and cracked her tailbone.

The owners can be another hazard. If they’re angry that their dog didn’t win, Corky says, “they’re going to want to blame you. . . . The hardest thing in the world is to have to tell them that Fido lost today. It’s personal to them. This is a living thing, not a race car.”

Between turns in the ring at the Fairplex show, Susan took in the scene--pompommed poodles being trotted around the ring, the intensity on the judges’ faces, the table laden with silver trophies. She smiled and said, “Sometimes I think this is absolutely nuts.”

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Beverly Beyette can be reached at beverly.beyette@latimes.com.