New York City Goes Back to the Dogs
By Jessica Freni
This weekend marked the triumphant return of Meet the Breeds to NYC for the first time since the pandemic! The Javits Center went to the dogs in the 14th Meet the Breeds event. Of the 200 fully recognized AKC breeds, and additional in FSS/MISC, there were 130 Breeds represented alongside various demonstrations, photo-ops and vendors/display booths (AKC Museum of the Dog, Westminster, the Farmer’s Dog, etc.)
The booths had a nice amount of space and were really well organized with a variety of dogs, educational material, interactive exhibits (there was knitting over at the Leonberger booth, a mascot for the Boston Terriers and a photo booth for the English Toy Spaniels) and rich breed histories. Eager attendees brought a lot of questions and were excited to pet the dogs and snap lots of selfies. The event also got a good amount of media exposure.
With more than 10,000 visitors through the event on Saturday alone it was a great opportunity for thoughtful dialog and re-engaged the pet public with purposeful preservation of purebreds. While Meet the Breeds has expanded to various locations nationwide the main NYC event is a major attraction and has been a successful stand-alone attraction even after separating from when it was held in conjunction with WKC. Several popular Breeds were conspicuously absent and hopefully in the coming years more Parent clubs will expand to participate in this outstanding engagement opportunity!
