The Westminster Masters Obedience Championship is new for 2016 Watch video
Toby the golden retriever wags his tail as he jauntily walks alongside his owner, Barbara Heesemann. He must know when to heel, but also know when not to follow. When instructed to sit and stay, he remains planted to the ground, using his brown eyes to track her as she walks around him -- he cranes his neck and twists so he doesn't lose her. But when she says go, he runs full-speed to the other end of the room. When she shouts, he drops to the floor.
But Toby is more than just well-behaved. Like 33 other dogs competing in a new part of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog show Monday, Toby is an obedience dog, an expert athlete in a sport that is worlds more intricate than simply being "a good dog."
"Toby SIT!" Heesemann commands, as dog and owner get ready for Westminster in a practice space at Hal Wheeler's Pet Resort & School for Dogs in Cedar Grove. Toby, in the middle of a sprint, comes to a screeching halt then sits and turns to face Heesemann.
The Westminster Masters Obedience Championship is having its inaugural run at the 140th Westminster dog show, becoming the freshest part of competition since the Westminster Masters Agility Championship was added in 2014. Of 2,752 dogs entered in the Westminster this year, 190 are from New Jersey. In an event traditionally prized for its celebration of breed standards -- the award for best in show is decided on Tuesday -- the agility contest holds the distinction of including mixed dogs. So does obedience, though no mixed dogs are in the obedience ring the first time out.
Long a part of the professional dog training world, obedience has made only fleeting appearances at Westminster, says Gail Miller, director of communications for Westminster Kennel Club. The first Westminster obedience demonstration was in 1936. There was another in the '40s, but never a competition, she says.
Why not incorporate obedience earlier in the show's 140-year run?
"The biggest drawback was size," Miller says. In years past, the dog show was confined to Madison Square Garden. Now, judging takes place at Piers 92 and 94 in New York before moving to the Garden for evening competition.
"Now that we have our daytime judging at the piers, now there's a lot more space," she says. Organizers were thrilled to open the competition up to mixed breeds, but Miller says that's all down to the American Kennel Club, which allows mixed breeds in companion events. The top 150 obedience dogs in the country, determined by an AKC ranking of dogs at obedience trials from Jan. 1 2015 to Oct. 31 2015, were invited to compete.
While the agility competition, which wrapped on Saturday, is a high-flying demonstration of precision and speed that sees handlers running alongside their dogs as they bounce over hurdles and weave around poles, obedience is a far tamer sport, one where intensity is measured in inches, not seconds.
"It's just like some people like watching golf and some watch tennis," Miller says. "With obedience, you're just walking and trotting." Still, she says, the slightest movements are weighed. A dog cannot hesitate before doing what's commanded, and it cannot sit crooked.
Heesemann, who has been competing with Toby, 8, for six years, and with his mother in years prior, says obedience is all about verbal control and getting a dog to focus on the trainer. This is her first time at Westminster.
"I'm honored and excited," she says. "Nothing but positivity. He will not be nervous. I'll be a wreck."
Obedience skills dogs must demonstrate include "scent discrimination," in which a dog has to discern which among a series of "articles" -- Heesemann uses miniature weight-like objects made of metal and leather -- have been touched by the trainer.
There's also "directed jumping," in which the dog moves away from the trainer in a straight line, sits on command and jumps when told. Dogs additionally have to "retrieve over high jump," which means jumping over a hurdle and securing an object, then jumping over the hurdle again to bring it back. Toby has to jump 26 inches -- each dog's jumping height is determined by how tall it stands at the shoulder.
Manager of a dental office in Saddle Brook, Heesemann co-owns Toby with veterinarian Allison Milne, owner of Mendham Animal Hospital. She says while the dog is totally attuned to his obedience exercises, when it's not "work" time, he's blissfully unfocused.
"If I left him to his own devices, he would circle this room many times," she says. "He's definitely just a good-time Charlie."
Only 10 dogs make the obedience final. If Toby does, his routine involves "scenting" rubber duckies -- that is, figuring out which duck in a group of ducks carries his owner's scent.
"I don't want to risk contaminating them with my scent," Heesemann says, using tongs to place the rubber ducks on the floor. If he makes it to the end of the competition, Toby will also have to retrieve plush ducks on command -- and not mistake them for errant toys.
"Toby's nearing retirement," Heesemann says. "It's all fun. Whatever happens happens."
Linda Brennan, of Columbia in Warren County, has been training dogs in obedience for 25 years. She's competing at Westminster with Heart, her 3 1/2-year-old Labrador retriever, who appeared on "Saturday Night Live" last year.
"I think it will bring a lot of public awareness to a competition that most people don't even know exists," she says. "I think people don't really have any idea of what it is that we do." Heart's father won the AKC National Obedience Championship twice.
"She was really specifically bred to do this sport," Brennan says. Yet regardless of a dog's lineage, the interplay between trainer and trainee is the most important factor, she says.
"In obedience, it's just you and the dog," Brennan says. "The only thing you bring in there is your relationship." This sets obedience apart from breed competition, for which it's customary to deploy separate handlers.
"You very rarely see anybody but the owner show the dogs," she says.
Regina Steiner, a teacher at Princeton Dog Training Club, has been working with obedience since 1983. Although there just so happens to be no mixed breeds in the first Westminster Obedience Championship, she appreciates the inclusion.
"Now I don't have to say to people, 'Now you could compete if you had a purebred,'" says Steiner, of Somerset. She's competing at Westminster with her dog, Bunny, a 5 1/2-year-old German shepherd who tackled 30 obedience trials last year. She says while many may prefer the adrenaline rush of agility competition, the oneness between dog and owner that obedience requires is different.
"Nothing builds the bond the way obedience does," she says. "It's special."