Lady and the Champ

Family pet and blueribbon dog Truman McMath wins spot in Westminster competition

BY LAURA LYNN BROWN ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

Truman McMath leads a double life.

During the week, he’s a homebody. He watches television, helps out with chores at the family’s horse barn and monitors the comings and goings of the teenagers and dachshund who live across the road.

On most weekends, he’s a traveler. He packs his many bags (actually he has them packed for him) and lives a routine of airports, hotels and room service as part of his public work.

Champion Truman McMath, a Cavalier King Charles spaniel, is a nationally ranked show dog. This weekend, his “parents,” Melissa and Dick Hatfield of Little Rock, will take him to New York for the event every show dog aspires to, the annual Westminster Kennel Club dog show.

Truman was supposed to be a plain old pet. Melissa Hatfield wanted a dog that would be friendly and good with children, since she has five grandchildren.

“I could not have a yappy dog. I had to have a quiet dog,” she says. “Living with my husband is like living with a terrier. He’s yappy.”

She settled on the Cavalier King Charles spaniel, and after checking out breeders she decided on Monarch Kennels in Kansas, where puppies are raised along with children. The process of research and gaining the breeders’ trust took a year. “People don’t sell these dogs to strangers,” she says. “It’s like adopting a baby.”

Before she could go to Kansas to look at a new litter, breeder Margie Riccomini was taking two show-quality puppies to Chicago to meet some people who had the pick of the litter. “I was really disappointed, because I wanted my puppy now,” Hatfield says.

Hatfield called her after that trip and asked, “How did it go?”

“They didn’t pick the right one,” Riccomini told her. She had three pet-quality puppies and the remaining show-quality pup.

Hatfield just wanted a pet. But the more puppies there are to pick from, the more she could learn about their personalities by watching their interaction. Sure, she said, she’d look at all four.

“Well, of course I fell in love with the show puppy,” she says.

She gave him a regular person name. Truman is for President Harry Truman, and McMath is for Sid McMath, Melissa’s late father, a Democrat, who was governor of Arkansas from 1949 to 1953.

“Papa lived long enough to know that he had Truman named after him,” she says.

On weekends Truman mixes with professional show dogs with ostentatious show dog names - among them Truluv Kiss N Tell at Jayba, Kexby Caribbean Queen, Raved About Her at Rheinvelt of Sumara, Grantilley Glenfiddich, Pinecrest Orchard Hill Rock The Boat, Castlemaine Pure Magic and Shado Run Hot Damn Here I Am.

AN ANIMAL’S PLANET

Truman was acclimated to travel early. When he was 4 months old, Hatfield, a jury consultant, took him with her for a five-day American Trial Lawyers seminar. She also took him when she visited a son at The Citadel, the South Carolina military college.

But mostly he sat at home and watched TV. His favorite channel is Animal Planet, and his favorite show is the veterinarian show, although he also enjoys watching dog shows, Hatfield says.

“It’s not just auditory, it’s visual,” she says. If the TV is muted and a dog or cat comes on, even in a commercial, he perks up. But some movies have irritated him.

“Lawrence of Arabia drove him nuts,” she says. “He hated the camel and the turbans.” He was also distressed by the nuns in the Whoopi Goldberg movie Sister Act. “I think it’s things on people’s heads.”

Truman also enjoys supervising at the horse barn. To get him out from underfoot, Hatfield puts a chair next to a fence. He has made friends with Donkey, the family donkey (and symbol of the family’s Democratic leanings). He likes to stand on the chair and lick Donkey’s ears. Donkey seems to enjoy it too, she says.

Truman turns up his nose at products made for dogs. The wellchewed cloth toys and animal hoof treats at the house belong to puppy Princeton McMath, his 10-month-old half brother.

Truman doesn’t care for the liver treats that many show dogs are given in the ring; his favorite snack is a piece of American cheese. He’s also a more finicky eater than Morris the cat; his diet is a home-cooked mix of lamb and rice.

His Christmas gift in 2005 was a low Queen Anne-style doggy couch. He ignores it, preferring the living room chairs and sofas he has always sat in with the family. Princeton uses it instead.

Hatfield had experience showing horses, and her friends encouraged her to show Truman. “I wouldn’t know where to start,” she says. But she entered him in a show.

Show dogs accumulate points at competitions, eventually reaching champion status. Many professional show dogs begin as puppies. It can take years for a dog to reach champion, and some dogs never make it. Last summer Hatfield met the people who chose the other puppy. He had never achieved champion status and they retired him.

Truman was 4 when he entered the show ring. It took him three weekends and one day to make champion.

Truman was supposed to have handler lessons before his first show, but the handler had an emergency and had to cancel. Hatfield bathed him herself in the sink.

“He didn’t even have a show lead,” just a regular collar and leash, Hatfield says. He won anyway.

He finally got his show lead, a black and white braided leather cord, for the December 2005 show where he scored enough points to become a champion.

“Ignorance is bliss,” Hatfield says. “I’m having fun. People told me, ‘It’s over.’ I said, ‘It can’t be!’”

GOOGLING TRUMAN

Last May, Hatfield figured out how to use the Internet to find a list of nationally ranked Cavaliers.

“I’m scrolling down, and number 50 was Champion Truman McMath,” she says. “I just started screaming. And I was in the house by myself. I said, ‘Wait just a minute, why didn’t anybody tell me about this?’”

Once dogs reach champion, they compete only in the best of breed category. They continue to accumulate points and rise in the rankings, in a year that runs from October to October. The show year was more than half over. But if Truman entered more shows, he might advance enough to go to Westminster or the other big dog show, Eukanuba. He finished the year ranked 35th, just 10 slots away from making the Eukanuba cut.

The Hatfields had a decision to make about Truman’s career. Many professional show dogs are sent to live with a professional handler, spending time in training, living in crates and attending shows every weekend.

Once Hatfield let Truman stay with a handler for five days. “When I got him he cried for two hours. He had a meltdown, I mean an absolute meltdown,” she says.

Truman also whines if he sees his mama during competition. She has to say goodbye in the hotel room and be sure to stay out of his line of sight in the ring.

But he loves being shown, she says. It helps that he has a crush on his handler, Megan Johnston, who has also won a junior handler award at Westminster. “He’s in love with Miss Megan, and it shows,” Hatfield says.

He also knows when he’s at a dog show. At a Fayetteville show, although he had never been to that arena, “a half a block away he started carrying on,” Hatfield says. “I said, ‘How do you know you’re at a dog show?’ He’s almost too hard to handle.”

Even for a photograph, Truman lights up at the attention. His ears perk up and his tail wags hard enough to power a generator. “The judges are looking for that ‘look at me’ attitude,” she says.

Part of Truman’s success comes from his good looks. He is a nearly perfect specimen of his breed, with symmetrical markings, desired body proportions and a gorgeous face. His only flaw is a crescent of white in one eye.

She knows his chances of winning might be higher if he trained like a professional athlete. “But since he was an only child for four years and he didn’t start this for four years,” she says, “I think if I did that to him he really would not understand.”

They took Truman to more shows. By the end of the year he was ranked 14th and had earned an invitation to the Westminster show at Madison Square Garden.

This weekend the Hatfields will pack Truman’s bags and head to New York. They’ll take his aluminum case of grooming tools that holds a special comb from England, an assortment of brushes, his first show lead, his Tigger toothbrush and his business cards. He also has various crates and the red and black rolling carry-on bag that he stays in on the plane. He has a new accessory just for the cold New York streets: a set of four high-top boots with nonslip rubber soles, Velcro closures and bright reflective strips.

At the hotel, Truman sleeps with the family. Hatfield spreads one of his “blankies,” a baby receiving blanket from Target or Wal-Mart, in the middle of the bed and sets her purse down. “He loves my purse, because he’s figured out that I’m not leaving without that purse,” she says.

If she goes out for dinner, she takes her secret second purse. When she comes back, he’ll still be right there on the bed.

As a warm-up, he will compete in a separate show Sunday. Then his big moment in the Westminster will come at 7:30 a.m. Monday when the Cavaliers compete. Two hours after each breed’s competition, video should be available on www.westminsterkennelclub.org.

Hatfield hopes to show him enough to get him in the Eukanuba show next year. He will retire in October, at the age of 6, and then will start a second career as a certified pet therapy dog.

But first, there’s his moment of glory at Westminster. Twice Truman has beat the No. 3-ranked dog. Hatfield would love to see him do that again, or to eclipse the top two. In Dallas a few weekends ago he was put first in “the victory lap,” she says, “but he threw it.”

But she’s not putting pressure on him to win. “Our win was when we got the invitation,” she says. “We’re going to have a blast. Although we’re not going to go with a paper sack over his head. He’s a really nice dog.”

This article was published on page 41 and 47 of the Thursday, February 08, 2007 edition in the Style section.