Dog show is no place for mushers

A crazy place. The place we stay delivers the New York Times to our hotel door. We ask for a wake-up call at 6:45, don't jump up when the phone rings (how did they know?), at five after seven. Security knocks on our door and asks if we are up yet. Is it against the law to oversleep here? There are mallards walking through the lobby, but no place to buy shotgun shells.

Zoya and I are in Orlando, Fla., for the AKC Eukanuba National Dog Show.

If you like dogs, this is the place. There are more than 5,000 dogs here representing almost 200 breeds.

One can certainly see why they call it a show. Everyone with a dog on a leash also carries a brush. The Afghan hounds are combed every time they slow down. The poodles don't get to walk; that might mess up their hair-sprayed 'dos.

One of my favorite breeds is the German shepherd, but these dogs are so set back in the hock they look about to collapse. The golden retrievers look good, not as dirty as they'd like to be, but all are fine-moving, well-built animals. The Labs also look right, and some are doing the diving competition as well as the show. There are a couple you could turn loose on those ducks in the hotel lobby with certain success.

Those ducks represent all of the game I've seen here. The only hunter was an osprey carrying a fish to the top of a streetlight.

However, we aren't here to hunt, or even to get outside, but to look at dogs. The area around the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando is mostly covered in concrete. The hotels are upscale. So ... where do five-thousand dogs go poop, and who cleans it up? I've seen a guy at the Center with a scooper, but it's always been empty. After three days, it remains a mystery.

The dogs and the owners are all pretty refined, seemingly calm and friendly, though maybe a little stiff. I have an urge to shake things up with a sled dog or two. A little Jack Russell terrier runs through the agility course at breakneck speed, barking the entire way; no refinement there!

There are more than a dozen show rings going at one time, with different breeds in each, at varying times throughout the day. Many of the dogs are handled by professional handlers. The owners tell me they are too nervous and the dogs pick up on that nervousness.

Also, there are politics involved. Judges and owners may know each other. Several of the handlers work with as many as 25 animals each day. The going rate is $100 every time they go into the ring. A sought-after dog handler can make $7,000-plus during the entire show, more if he or she is handling some champions.

This show is not all for prestige. I talked with the owners of a giant schnauzer that was the first pick of breed. The dog's sister was due with an 11-pup litter; that certificate will help set the value of those pups at $2,000 each.

This is the biggest dog show in the world. In addition to the pomp of this canine beauty pageant, the AKC gives awards that have nothing to do with looks. There are special presentations for search-and-rescue animals and for dogs that work in therapy.

There is a big dog show somewhere in the country every weekend of the year except Christmas. Many of the larger kennels travel around to them, and there are breeders and owners from overseas as well. It makes me realize that Alaska's Iditarod and Yukon Quest are relatively small events in the scheme of the professional dog world.

The Eukanuba National is an interesting place, although at the end of the week, both Zoya and I are eager to trade our dress shoes for bunny boots and the palm trees for a good snowstorm.

John Schandelmeier of Paxson is a lifelong Alaskan and Bristol Bay commercial fisherman. A former champion of the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race, he has written on the outdoors for several newspapers and magazines. His wife, Zoya DeNure, is signed up for the 2012 Iditarod.