Page 32 - HOTdog Magazine 1-2.2019

World Dog Show 2018 32 H O Tdog
around 18,000 individual
dogs in total. But of course,
that is very good and to have
the space and the rings for all
the World Show and the Spe-
cialties the RAI (event halls of whole weekend, for children
Amsterdam) were an excel-
lent choice. However, parking
is a problem and very, very
expensive. Caravans and Mo-
torhomes had to park about
17 km kilometers away and
notwithstanding the shuttle
that was organized, it was not
very convenient if you had
to take all your stuff, or big
dogs with you. But even with
a car it was not easy. The
RAI is close to the center and
there is hardly any sparking
around. All parking is under
the halls plus a special park-
ing complexes attached to
the halls. You could only en-
ter with a ticket bought in
advance and it was far from
cheap.
The first day I had to queue
more than half an hour in
the early morning as it was
a working day and a several
hundred of cars had to find
their way to a parking spot.
I had to park very far away
and from Hall 1 where I was
it took me 25 minutes to go
find something in my car that
I forgot.
The last day I was parked in
the parking tower on the 5th
floor and it took so long be-
fore the lift came up, some-
times still full with people,
dogs and crates that I took
the stairs finally.
Friends, trade stand hold-
ers, had to pay 650 EURO for
the weekend to have their
van parked on the parking
outside. Parking came in sur-
plus to the entrance fee for
the dogs and catalog that was
to be paid an extra 5 EURO/
day/Show.
Suppose you entered a dog
rather late you had to pay
120 EURO for the WDS, 75
for the Benelux Winner and
55 for the Specialty show, or
265 EURO including catalogs
Main Topic • WDS ‘18. Amsterdam
and excluding the parking
for 3 days (3x 12,50 EURO)
and traveling costs and hotel
or camping. There you go!
Visitors had to pay 15 EURO
(adults) per day but there
were special rates for the
and seniors. Still Sunday
morning in the Press Confer-
ence was announced that al-
ready 35,000 visitors were
counted.
The Dutch Kennel Club,
founded in 1901, has about
200 breed clubs, 70 regional
training clubs and about 10
specialty clubs like for train- car was traced via the license
ing judges etc. Every year
they have +/- 6500 litters
registered, good for about
36,000 puppies and they es-
timate that live around 1,5
milj dogs of which 500,000
are purebreds.
All this means that cynol-
ogy is flourishing well. But
dark clouds are casting a dark
shadow over all this as there
is a strong anti -dog-show and
anti-pure-bred-dogs lobby.
Holland had the first animal
rights party elected in the
world and although Animal
Rights is good, it must not go
into extremes. In Amsterdam
they seat in the city council
and would have banned the
World Dog Show if they could,
but all agreements to organ-
ize the WDS were made long
before they had any power.
Anyway, the long term
agreement with the RAI,
which belongs to the city, will like in Amsterdam will surely
come to an end and the coun-
cil does not want to prolong
it. Fortunately it did not af-
fect the show, although there
were no officials to visit this Professional handlers will
event. The local media were
full of comments , articles
and interviews and in the
end this was a marvelous op-
portunity for the Dutch Ken-
nel Club to counter the anti
lobby and show what they
actually stand for. I was told
that there was a small pro-
1-2 / 2019
test group announced but I
did not see anything. But the
Dutch Kennel Club was very
afraid that stupid exhibitors
or visitors with dogs would
let dogs in the car. One such
incident would lit the fire
again and that would be dis-
astrous for the Kennel Club.
Severe measurements were
announced in case some dogs
were found left in cars. Zero
tolerance was the motto. If
dogs were found in cars, even
in the shade or in the parking,
the name of the owner of the
plate that was registered by
entering the RAI. If the owner
did not show up within maxi-
mum 30 minutes , the car was
broken open. The owner had
to pay a fine of several hun-
dred EURO’s , was excluded
from the show, all titles with-
drawn and was banned not
only from the show but also
prohibited to enter any dog in
the Netherlands in the future.
By the end of the event about
15 cases were found. GOOD
JOB ! I hope other countries
will follow this example as
our hobby is really under fire
nowadays.
In Luxembourg the Minister
of Agriculture has suspended
the shows as a result of cases
of dogs left in cars with fa-
tal consequences. I think it
is only not fair to punish a
whole community for the mis-
behavior of some individuals.
But severe measurements
help to counter the anti lobby
and alarm those who don’t re-
ally care about the dogs, only
about money and prestige.
think twice if they take more
dogs than they can manage,
because if banned they have
no job.
The official motto of the
show was “Show the world
your talent”. With regard to
shows to me it sounds a little
weird. What talent is involved
in showing a dog? Of course