Ch. Hop-O of Hartlebury (Jo Jo of Caversham x Topsee of Caversham)
PUG At the 1935 Morris & Essex Kennel Club dog show, the entry of 3,175 was the show’s largest up to that time. (The 1939 event was the show’s grandest with 4,456 entries.) In his coverage of preparations for the event, New York Times writer Fred van Ness re- ported, “$20,000 in cash prizes and 220 trophies will be distributed.” Al- though Harry Hartnett handled the celebrated Irish Setter, Ch. Milson O’Boy, to Best in Show under judge G .V. Glebe that year, other winners emerged from breed entries deep in quality. Among them was Ch. Jin Rickey, a Pug owned by Mrs. Edna Hillgamyer of East St. Louis, Illinois. The entry was reportedly one of the largest the breed had ever seen in America. The win certainly gave the Midwest Toy a lot of exposure. Dur- ing the 1937 show season, the fawn dog was Best of Breed on six occa- sions, placing in the Group each time. Mrs. Hillgamyer’s kennel also in- cluded eight “very fine” brood bitches as well as three champions at stud, as noted in the AKC Blue Book. JAPANESE (SPANIEL) CHIN When Ch. Kumochi-No-Koban ap- peared on the bench in America, his breed was known as the Japanese Spaniel. (In 1977, the AKC officially changed the misnomer “Spaniel” to the appropriately royal designation, “Chin.”) The little dog’s owner, Mrs. Edward H. Berendsohn, was one of the breed’s earliest promoters in the US. In 1932, the lady judged the Toy Group at Westminster and gave the Ch. Jin Rickey (Ch. Silver King of Broadway of Georgian Court x Adile of Sigvale)
Ch. Kumochi-No-Koban (Kumochi-No-Kobe x Kumochi-No-Taiko)
win toKeuwannaTiti, the breed’s first Group Winner at the Garden. Mrs. Berendsohn imported the Austrian- born Nagako v. Miniatur, a bitch that proceeded to win specialties in 1933, ’35& ’37. Of particular interest to stu- dents of 20th century American dog shows, Dr. and Mrs. Berendsohn in- troduced Alva Rosenberg to purebred dogs. The future all-rounder worked in the kennel at the couple’s home in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn. PAPILLON Mrs. J. De Forest Danielson was gifted a pair of Papillons from Paris by Mrs. William Storr Wells in 1907. In the years that followed, the Bos- ton native imported another pair, one of which produced a dog named Jou Jou, the first Papillon registered with the AKC and the breed’s first American-bred champion. In 1915, the year of the breed’s recognition in the US, Mrs. Danielson resided at 4 Commonwealth Avenue, her child- hood home that had been built by retail druggist William Brown on land purchased directly from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Mrs. Danielson was the parent club’s first president and the breeder of Am. Eng. Ch. Offley Coquette, the first Papillon in America to win the Toy Group, and Am. Eng. Ch. Off- ley Black Diamond, the breed’s first Best in Show winner. By the time Ch. Itho of Offley appeared on the bench, the lady divided her time between a townhouse at 28 Commonwealth and Pound Farm, her country home in Medford, Massachusetts.
age, the kennel’s American-bred Ch. Burlingame Dubarry won the parent club specialty. Not to be outdone, Ch. Burlingame Hellzapoppin won the Toy Group at Westminster in 1940—
owner-handled. PEKINGESE
“The Toytown Pekingese will spend their summers on Cape Cod,” reports an AKC staff writer in the Blue Book. “An island has been purchased. An ideal summer kennel has been erect- ed… They will have one entire end of the island to themselves.” This idyll life on Pine Island, Osterville, Mas- sachusetts, was the vision of a New England mother and daughter team. “It has always been the aim of both Mrs. and Miss Connell to own only the best Pekingese that could be pur- chased or bred,” the 1938 publication advises. “They have imported 60 of the finest bitches and dogs they could find, and from these they are breeding outstanding American-breds.” One of Judith Connell’s top winners was Ch. Honey of Toytown, Best in Show at the national specialty in 1939 under Mr. Frank Downing. Another out- standing Toytown Peke was Ch. Hop- O of Hartlebury. “He was chosen by his owner as the best young dog in England, in her opinion, after visiting 23 of the leading kennels and seeing championship shows in various parts of the country,” the Blue Book claims. This import hailed from the legend- ary CavershamKennels ofMissMary de Pledge.
30 • T op N otch T oys , N ovember /D ecember 2020
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