The Italian Job: When 16 is Old Enough

One of today’s big news stories regards the credentials of an Italian official. In this high stakes game, as we get incrementally closer to the final judgment day, we start to look more closely at the judges themselves. For the first time since the beginning of the Westminster Kennel Club dog show, the Best in Show judge is an Italian.

As released to the press by the WKC:

Paolo Dondina of Monterchi, Italy, will become the first Italian ever and the first person from outside of North America since 1930 to judge Best In Show at the legendary Westminster Kennel Club's Annual All Breed Dog Show when he takes on that assignment in 2011.

And

Mr. Dondina has had a number of breeds, and has bred Beagles, Basset Hounds, English Springer Spaniels, Lagoto Romagnolos and Jack Russell Terriers. He has had great success as an exhibitor, including as the co-owner of Brookwire Brandy of Layven, the Wirehaired Fox Terrier that captured Best In Show at the famed Crufts Dog Show in the United Kingdom in 1975. One of his Beagles was the top dog in all breeds in Italy in 2005.

If you, like me, read this and wondered, what the hell is a Lagoto Romagnolo, it’s a water retriever who now hunts truffles.  (Nice work if you can get it.) 

Kind of looks like a Labradoodle, but what I found most interesting about this as-yet-to-be-accepted-by-the-AKC-breed, is its life span!  Sixteen years is a pretty long life for a dog.  And it has a long and proud Italian history (the breed is shown here in a 1474 painting by Mantegna).

For more on this beauty, check out the clubs – the Lagotto Romagnolos Club of America, whose mission it is to have the AKC accept the breed, or the Lagotto Club of America, whose mission is to disseminate information about the breed. 

Somewhere, in its trip to America, a 't' was added to its name.