This handsome and elegant Smooth Fox Terrier is Dodger (CH J’Cobe Vigilante Justice), who swept the dog world off its feet in 2010 and retired from his American show career as the top dog in the country as well as the top-winning Smooth Fox Terrier of all time. Still very much in his prime, he then went to Brazil for a year and blew the competition away there as well.
He was already topping the charts in June 2010 when I caught him while he was on the west coast at the Great Western Terrier show in Long Beach, CA. Handler Amy Booth asked if I would take some photos and I jumped at the chance. We were at a park right on the water, adjacent to the berth for the retired cruise ship, RMS Queen Mary.
I wanted a clean shot of the dog with blue sky and an uncomplicated coastline, but we let him move around a bit and he wandered over to a spot where the Queen Mary was going to be in the background. I really didn’t want a big white (distracting) boat behind the dog. I kept trying to adjust my position to get a better angle without success. I wasn’t going to get that boat out of the background without moving the dog. Then, Dodger turned his head and front towards the camera, leaving a sliver of blue sky between his body and the ship, and that was the money shot.
Dodger won Best In Show at the terrier specialty not only that day but the next. When I look at this shot, I can’t help but think that this spectacular dog found his own place in the presence of royalty.
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1 comment
I love this picture. You got so much detail in the black face. Amazing!