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breed”) to Mr. and Mrs. John Wagner–the wish to get up there and sort through them.
American Boxer breeders who did so much
to make Boxers the show dogs they are
today in America. These letters were an
exchange discussing the merits of the great
Ch. Bang Away of Sirrah Crest and why
Mrs. Stockmann felt that the Wagner’s dog,
Ch. Brandy of Mazelaine, was the superior
animal. It is chilling to think how easily these found up there was chilling.
letters may have been lost to the ages. Clearly,
when Mrs. Wagner died she hadn’t organized
her personal archives and they were lost for
sixty years then eventually sold with a stack
of old dog show photographs from whoever
had saved them. One can only guess if the
photographs and letters were picked up at a
yard sale or a flea market and only by chance
were they saved for our history.
When the great German Shorthaired Pointer
breeder and AKC judge Walt Shellenbarger
died, he sent to me his tattered remnants
of his life in dogs. As is so typical of dog
people, Walt’s life had been filled with the
greatest of achievements and the deepest
of tragedies. His ex-wife was gone and his
one “doggy” daughter was dying and didn’t
want the archives. In despair, he sent them
to me. These archives were in bad shape.
They were full of mold and discolored, but
still I couldn’t help but pour over them. In
the letters I learned what famed writer and
AKC judge the late Cede B. Maxwell truly
thought of the great Westminster Best in
Show winning Shorthair, Ch. Gretchenoff
Columbia River, and why she preferred a
bitch (“without money behind her”) over
Traveller. I also learned that the Shorthair
fancy has been viscously competitive for sixty
years (not a new phenomenon) and that front
assembly has been misunderstood by the
fancy since time immemorial; and that the
financial struggle to juggle dogs vs. family of
sixty-years ago is no different than it is today.
This information is too valuable to throw
away. It must be preserved for the future of
the breed.
Several years ago another dear friend and
mentor was dying and I went to visit her.
During that time I conducted an impromptu
interview with her–recording for the ages her How I came to purchase this collection is for
walk in life with dogs. Like Mr. Shellenbarger, another article but I did manage to save it. If
this lady had hit both the heights and the
depths through her journey in dogs and it
was during that discussion that she revealed
to me that all of her archives were in the attic. Roberts collection would have been sold
The memories were too painful. She didn’t
No amount of pestering by me could make
her change her mind. And so, months later,
my friend and mentor died leaving no family
behind. I was given notice that the house was
set to be demolished. In a panic I called the
executor of the estate. She agreed that I could
come up and go through the attic. What I
Underneath thick, spider webs and dust
lay moldy, crumpled boxes of photographs
of every dog that my friend had bred and
finished. There were framed Championship
certificates, extended pedigrees, old breed
books and hand written letters from her
mentors from the 1950s. There were copious
amounts of blackened, plated silver Best in
Show trophies, faded rosettes from shows all
over the country as well as two, sterling silver
Best in Show trophies from none other than
the Westminster Kennel Club. These things
are now preserved but imagine how close
they came to oblivion. My friend and mentor
hadn’t wanted to relive a painful past so she
never faced her archives. What is sitting in
your attic?
A few older readers might remember the
name Percy Roberts. A member of the Dog
Show Hall of Fame, Mr. Roberts was born
in Liverpool England in the late nineteenth
century, and died in The United States of
America in the 1970s. His last judging
assignment was that of Best in Show at
Westminster. During his life, Mr. Roberts
was an innovator and many of the things we
do in dogs today began with him including
importing dogs, running in the ring (as
opposed to walking), Free-Stacking, and
promoting dogs through advertising. I’ve
written in great detail about Percy Roberts
so I won’t retell his life here but to say he
was of immense importance to our sport
of purebred dogs. Imagine my surprise
at finding his entire, doggy estate for sale
through an auction house in Virginia. The
collection was vast. It included stacks of
Tauskey photographs, old paintings and
volumes upon volumes of letters to and from
his illustrious clients from all over the world.
not for the kindness of the seller who was not
a dog person but surmised that this archive
was somehow important, the entire Percy
“piecemeal” on Ebay as my competitor
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