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King, the dog, is enjoying a steak, well-done, at Sardi's, the famous theatre-district restaurant in New York.
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He deserves it, because he just won Best in Show at the 143rd Westminster Kennel Club dog show, in 2019.
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Then, he tried to eat a microphone.
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King is at the end of the long list of terriers to win Best in Show at Westminster.
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But King, as wonderful as he is, will almost certainly not do what this dog did.
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This is the only dog to win Best in Show at Westminster 3 times in a row.
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That's a 3-peat!
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How did she do it?
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And was she really the greatest dog of all time?
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The answer involves a breed, a socialite, and the short life of a legend named Warren Remedy.
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This is not a steak.
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This is a rat.
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Terriers made their reputations as rat catchers.
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First bred in the British isles, the smooth terrier and wire fox terrier crossed over to America.
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Warren Remedy was a smooth fox terrier while King is a wire fox terrier.
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The dogs don't just share a "Best in Show title," but also a common fox terrier heritage.
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With just a few exceptions, the American smooth fox terrier started off in the 1880s in the oldest of our great kennels, Warren Kennels, the one started by Winthrop Rutherfurd.
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Rutherfurd was a wealthy Manhattan socialite.
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He dated a Vanderbilt before marrying a Vice-President's daughter.
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He was also really into terriers.
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Rutherfurd was president of the American Fox Terrier club, funding it and working to boost the breed's clout.
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He also raised them at his estate in Allamuchy, New Jersey.
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“Allamuchy Township Tax and Animal Licensing office.”
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Hi, uh, what county are you in?
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“Warren County.”
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That's why his kennels were called Warren Kennels.
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“Oh, what kennels?”
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So that is where Warren Remedy got her name.
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All the Warren Kennel dogs were Warren something.
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And all that stuff sets the stage for the confluence of events that would make her not just a dog, but an icon.
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Let's go back to King.
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King didn't win just for being the best dog.
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He won according to standards used by Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show judges.
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Standards of what an ideal wire fox terrier is.
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He has small, v-shaped ears of moderate thickness, a flat top-line of the skull, a coat with dense wiry texture—
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It's not just an awesome dog, but the dog that best exemplifies the breed.
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Winthrop Rutherfurd helped write the standards for the smooth fox terrier for his club, and Westminster.
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The Westminster Kennel Club started shows in 1877, just a few years before Rutherfurd's Warren Kennel started.
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It didn't have Best in Show, a competition between breeds, until 1907.
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By then, Rutherfurd was a member of the Westminster Bench Show Committee, and guaranteed prize money for the smooth and wire fox terrier categories.
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He ran one of the two top smooth fox terrier kennels in the country.
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Other dogs were measured by the type he'd established.
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His dog, Warren Remedy, won shows around the country.
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The judges called her the “sprightly clean-limbed little miss,” and raved that she was truest to type.
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But is it any wonder that she won Westminster specifically again, and again, and again?
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The surprise isn't that she won three times.
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It's that she lost a fourth time to the other big fox terrier breeder out of Texas, Sabine Kennels.
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Even though Sabine beat Warren Remedy, it wasn't really a loss for the Rutherfurd type.
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A dog from the Sabine Kennel sired Warren Remedy: he was her dad.
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So, what do we do with Warren Remedy?
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Was she really the greatest dog of all time?
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After the reign of the smooth fox terrier, wire-fox terriers became cooler, all the way up to King in 2019.
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A smooth fox terrier never won after 1910.
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Regulations also got stricter in 1924.
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There have been a couple of repeat winners since, but no three-timers, and no two-timers since 1972.
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That's over.
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Before that, even an elite dog like Warren Remedy had a window.
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A 20-year smooth fox terrier trend.
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A short 7-year life.
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And 3 years as Best in Show.
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In 1906, she needed a little size yet, but had time.
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By 1909, even when she was queen of all dogs at Westminster, Sabine Kennel dogs were winning other competitions across the country.
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But for a couple of years, she had the glory.
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She endorsed Spratt's Dog Cakes.
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She earned all those front-page headlines.
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Maybe those three wins, maybe they were about socialites, and structure, and trends.
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Maybe she wasn't the greatest dog of all time.
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But the window's small for every dog.
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Maybe they're all the greatest, for a moment.
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Maybe all the dogs deserve one night when they get the steak.
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So maybe you're curious when the terrier reign over Best in Show finally ended, and it didn't happen until 1913 when a bulldog — this big boy, named Strathtay Prince Albert
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— managed to pull off the victory.