Page 146 - ShowSight - August 2019

European Dog Show
BY KARL DONVIL
2019 WELS AUSTRIA
With the World Dog Show in Shanghai-China this year, too far away and complicated to travel with dogs for the European exhibitors that far outnumber the other members of the FCI, it was in the line of expectations that The European Dog Show of this year would be a real success. Austria, one of the first FCI countries, celebrated its 110th anniversary. The Austrian Kennel Club had hosted the European Dog Show already twice in the past, the first time in 1999 and the second time in 2005, and in 2012, the World Dog Show was held in Salzburg with 18,607 entries, plus around 5,000 entries for the club specialties. 13,244 Dogs were entered for this European Show, while another 6,812 were booked for the Aus- trian Winner. That makes a nice total of 20,066 entries. The organizers, the Öster- reichischer Kynologenverbandes, were very pleased with this result, it was more than they had expected. The club had chosen for the city of Wels, situated on the rural part of Austria, but not too far from where the mountains start. The city of Wels has good connections via highway and train and the airport of Linz. The Expo Halls offer suf- ficient space to host all those dogs in with two new halls for the European Show and several old ones where the Austrian Cham- pion show took place. They are situated along the river Traun, at the border of the historical center of the city and facing the park. This was obviously one of the advan- tages, but on the other hand, so close to a city center means that all the traffic arrives via the smaller city roads. The results were there, traffic obstructions in the morning, and that creates a lot of stress from the start on because people start wondering if they will arrive in time for the show. And as if this was not enough, a continental heat wave struck the city. And it was hot, really hot, with temperatures rising quickly up to over 30°C. That was not what the OKV had wished for. All this together brought certain exhibitors literally to the cooking point when they had to queue at the gates to come in and find shade. This is always one of the weakest points of a show of this size. Usually, last year students of the Vet- erinary faculty are asked to do the check- ing of papers and dogs and they often take it too seriously, going too far into details. They are not aware that this creates long rows of upset people, anxious to get in. Parking was no problem, there was enough space available, but getting there meant
queuing and as many did not want to queue in the streets, they parked their cars in the city where they found a place and went on foot to the halls. It is always a bad situation to face from the start on. Enough entrances should be available so that this could be prevented. A good first impression makes it easier to forgive small faults during the rest of the day. Of course, there was the coinci- dence with the heat and this took on for all the three days of the show. On Sunday, a few excited exhibitors forced a door and the security had to push them back. That went along with pushing, screaming and shout- ing, but security had no other choice as to push them back. Imagine what it would be if they could not lock the door again. Someone filmed this incident and immedi- ately sent it to Facebook. Within minutes it was shared with lots of ugly comments. Again Facebook proved how dangerous it can be if something is posted, without explanation, taken out of its context, giving an impression as if the whole show was one big catastrophe.
But was this what the show was like? Certainly not, inside the main and new halls where the European Dog Show took place temperatures were tolerable. The old halls where the Austrian Winner was judged were less comfortable but I heard very few complaints, probably because peo- ple understood very well that the tempera- ture was exceptional. There was even a trade stand holder who stressed that it was cooler in the old halls where he was, then in the new ones, notwithstanding the lower ceil- ings there. It was, however, strange that the new recently build halls were not equipped with air conditioning and the Rotaxhall, where the main ring was situated, in par- ticular! I was told that the cost for it was not in relation to the few days a year that it would be useful.
144 • ShowSight Magazine, auguSt 2019