Anne Rogers Clark, Imposing Dog Show Judge, Dies at 77 Options

[*slammin shelby*]

Okay. So alot of you have no idea who she is. But I wanted to post it anyway. I found out about it when she died on Wednesday. Anne was an amazing woman. I was only able to be judged by her once, but she is one of the best judges I have ever seen or met. I'm good friends with her protégé Kaz Hosaka who handles poodles. I know that he has missed alot of dog shows to be by her bedside when she was sick. It is a great loss for him. She was an insparation to us all in the world of dogs.

By STUART LAVIETES
Published: December 23, 2006
Anne Rogers Clark, a commanding figure in the world of show dogs who won renown at the Westminster Dog Show as a handler, a judge and a breeder, died Wednesday in Wilmington, Del., at the home of a friend. She was 77 and a longtime resident of Greenwood, Del.

The cause was kidney failure associated with colon cancer, said Thomas H. Bradley III, the chairman of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.

At 6 feet 2 inches, Mrs. Clark was an imposing and instantly recognizable presence in the show ring. For six decades, she was a fixture at Westminster, and she holds many of its records. Among them, she was the first woman to win best in show as a professional handler, and she ranked second among all handlers with three best in shows.

She also shared the record for most judging appearances at Westminster, with 22. She would have broken that record in February, when she was scheduled to be judge of the terrier group at Madison Square Garden.

A walking encyclopedia on the standards of more than 400 breeds worldwide, she was one of only two dozen people licensed to judge all 165 breeds and varieties recognized by the American Kennel Club.

She had more than a deep knowledge of dogs, though; she had a way with them.

“Dogs responded to her,” Mr. Bradley said. “As a judge, she was authoritative and friendly. Some dogs who were shown to her many times would even recognize her. They would wag their tails when they saw her.”

Born in 1929 in Flushing, Queens, Anne Rogers was the great-granddaughter of a 19th-century mayor of New York, Philip Hone, and a second-generation dog person. Her mother, who ran a kennel in Pound Ridge, N.Y., started a successful dog department at Abercrombie & Fitch, then opened a grooming service in Manhattan called Dogs Inc.

Turning down a scholarship to the veterinary school at Cornell, Anne Rogers joined her mother’s business after high school, then took to the show ring as a handler. She won her first best in show at Westminster in 1956, handling a toy poodle, Ch. Wilbur White Swan, the first dog from the toy group to win top honors there.

She turned to judging in 1967, two years after retiring as a handler. Although she said she was possibly the slowest judge in American Kennel Club history during her first few years, by 1973 she had worked her way to Westminster to judge the toy group. She judged the best in show in 1978.

Mrs. Clark was also a winner at Westminster as a breeder. She and her husband, James, captured non-sporting-group honors with their standard poodle Ch. Rimskittle Ruffian in 1980. In 2002, her miniature poodle Ch. Surrey Spice Girl, which she bred with Barbara Furbush and her protégé Kaz Hosaka, won best in show.

Mrs. Clark’s activities extended beyond Westminster. Until recently, she spent most weekends traveling around the country judging at specialty shows. She was a president of the Poodle Club of America and the English Cocker Spaniel Club of America, co-wrote “The International Encyclopedia of Dogs” and published a compilation of her monthly columns for Dogs in Review magazine called “Annie on Dogs!”

Mrs. Clark, whose husband died in 1991, had no children and leaves no survivors. She did hope to leave a legacy in the world of registered purebreds.

“I have to get through to you that I adore to judge,” she was quoted as saying in The Wall Street Journal earlier this year. “I look forward to walking in the ring. I feel when a class comes in, it’s like a blank canvas, and if I’m lucky, I can paint on this canvas what the breed should be.”

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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/23/sports/o...ts/23clark.html