If you attended The National Dog Show when it recently set up shop in Philadelphia, you might have seen out Drexel Hill native and dog handler Joseph Buchanan and one of his Pharaoh Hounds participating in the show.
Buchanan, who is also a registered nurse and a client-services manager for a pharmaceutical company, used to participate in more than 100 dog shows each year while maintaining his career. But in recent years, he’s had to limit the number of shows he does in order to volunteer for local organizations like the Mazzoni Center and Explorers Sans Frontieres.
He said it takes a lot of dedication to excel as a dog trainer and handler.
“Any common person can get a dog and show it and go in the ring, get a ribbon and leave,” he said. “But to actually do it right, it takes a lot of dedication. The dogs are a 24-hour job. You are training and grooming and going to classes. It’s a full-time job.”
While dog shows may seem like something only the well-to-do get involved in, Buchanan said it is not something people do to make money.
“There is very little money to be made in dogs,” he said. “So anyone that is breeding dogs and showing dogs really isn’t doing it for a monetary benefit. You have handlers that make a living at this, but in most cases you do this for the love of the sport and the love of the dogs. So really it’s for the pride of breeding and raising a dog and having it be great. For a lot of people, it’s an art form. So especially when it comes to some coded breeds and grooming, a lot of it has to do with art. You can take a dog with hair and mold it into the look you want. Some people like friendly competition and camaraderie and you get that through dog shows and breeding and showing. You get to work every day and share your goals and visions.”
Another thing Buchanan gets asked about is about the treatment of the dogs participating in the shows.
“The questions that I get are, How do you keep the dogs happy?” he said. “In most cases, for most handlers like myself, once we leave the dog show, the dog is a family pet. They are in our house. They are on our sofa. They live a completely normal life like any pet would.”
Buchanan added that a lot of the attendees of the dog shows are families looking to learn which breed would make a good pet.
“I see a lot of families with children,” he said. “The draw is the children love the dogs; more so than the parent taking the children, the children take the parents to the dog show.”
He also said people should definitely feel free to approach the trainers and talk to them about the different breeds at the shows.
“Talk to as many people as possible,” he said. “All of the handlers, breeders and dogs are in the buildings all day. Most of the time, because they are only in the ring a few minutes of that day, there are many hours with their dog on their bench and spectators walk through and don’t say anything. But we want the interaction. We want you to ask us about the dogs so you can learn about the breed and make good decisions about the kind of pet you want in your home.”
For more information on local dog breeders, events and resources, visit www.hkc.org.
