Young pups "Stumped" by Westminster Best in Show

By Gale Hammond

Bring 2,500 canines to New York's Madison Square Garden, add a crowd of 20,000 cheering fans and what do you get? Well, besides an awful lot of barking, you get a Scottish terrier that had to "go" in an unscheduled pit stop, a poofy black poodle with an elaborate "do," a giant schnauzer that was actually favored to win and, oh yeah - you get "Stump" - the 10-year-old Sussex spaniel that took Best in Show at the prestigious Westminster Kennel Club's annual dog show recently.

Of course you know what this means, friends. Yes, it's a great victory for the old guy. And you would think this mellow fellow would have been content to finish out his days with some rawhide chewies and a nice warm bed by the fire, wouldn't you? Well, you'd think.

But maybe Stump (who is, remember, 70 in "people years") decided he just wasn't in the right frame of mind for retirement. For getting old. For being put out to pasture and out of touch. Maybe old Stump decided to prove that getting older isn't necessarily about getting redundant. Maybe he decided that getting older was, indeed, about getting better.

The cool thing about dogs - and probably other animals but I know more about dogs having been owned by several of them over the years - is that they don't let a little dementia get them down.

A bit of arthritis? Well, shoot - once they have stretched a minute or two, older dogs are as willing as any young pup to chase a ball or fetch a stick. And I'm guessing that dogs believe a little snow on the roof might be a good thing, too. It sure didn't hurt old Stump as he whipped those young "slumdogs" into their respective places at the Garden.

Amazingly, Stump was nearly a goner a few years ago. When he came down with a mysterious ailment that was causing him to waste away, vets at Texas A&M brought him back to health. And perhaps there's nothing like a trip to death's door to make one appreciate the sweetness of life.

So almost on a whim, five days before the show his trainer entered Stump so he could take a last turn on the green carpet at the Garden. And the thing is, nobody explained to Stump that just because he'd reached retirement age it became compulsory for him to stop working because he was, well, you know … "old."

Try telling that to people these days. We bore witness to a contest between an "old pooch" and a "young pup" recently. And what were we repeatedly told about John McCain? Yep - he was old. Older than dirt. Older than God. Never mind the political side of things. McCain was just "too old."

The neat thing about Stump, and what made him such a crowd pleaser at the Westminster, was nobody imposed society's prejudices upon him. Part of what made him such a winner in everybody's eyes was that he IS an old dog. The oldest dog, in fact, to ever win the Westminster. And Stump, the wise old gentleman with the quiet manner, plodding gait and placid brown eyes, was impervious to experts' consensus that he never stood a chance in the ring with all of that powerful competition.

And what do you suppose old Stump was thinking as he trotted around the ring in the company of some pretty high-priced competition, some of which were, relatively speaking, entire decades younger than him? Do you suppose it was kind of what any laid back elder might be thinking surrounded by a gaggle of preening, prancing, pooping youngsters?

Yep, old Stump was probably feeling a heck of a lot of relief that he had grown beyond all that stuff. Because remember back in the day when you had that drive in you that said you just had to be "cool?" One of the in-crowd? At his advanced age, Stump might have assumed the same kind of attitude that other sensible 70-year-olds adopt - the wisdom that at some point in life, sometime when you didn't even realize it, caring about that elusive "cool quotient" had simply slipped quietly by the wayside.

Imagine. Stump was no doubt looking around at all the tail sniffing and growling and hissy-fitting and thinking, "I am SO over all that stuff." He'd shake his old head with the big floppy ears, take another turn around the ring and know that he had worked hard and earned his rightful place in the sun. That folks were going to like and respect him - not because he was an old dog who had learned some new tricks - but because folks were paying attention to a few of his old ones.

So maybe Stump, the oldest winner of the 133rd annual Westminster Best in Show, was letting all of us nonbelievers out here know that triumphant aging is, after all, in the attitude and that getting older isn't such a bad thing after all. And - hey! That it sure beats the alternative.