A Wisconsin-handled dog finishes runner-up at Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show

A Wisconsin-handled dog was runner-up and won its group at the prestigious Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show on Tuesday.

The 148th edition of the dog world’s signature contest was won by Sage, a miniature poodle from Texas. The runner-up, or Reserve Best in Show, for top dog was Mercedes, a 4-year-old German Shepherd from Bethesda, Maryland, and was handled by Kent Boyles, from Edgerton, Wisconsin.

"We are very happy with how she performed," Boyles told the Journal Sentinel in an interview. "She was in great shape and she was in a great frame of mind."

The contest has over 2,500 dogs and over 200 different breeds and features various competitions by groups, along with the overall best in show.

Boyles said the competition usually has the best dogs in the country competing against one another. Mercedes came into it as the top-ranked German Shepherd in the country, top-ranked herding dog and was in the top five among all breeds, he said.

Mercedes won its group, for herding dogs, against 32 other breeds, in addition to its runner-up finish in the overall competition.

Boyles described Mercedes as "open-minded, playful and energetic." While her owners live in Maryland, Mercedes lives with Boyles through the competition season.

German shepherds are in their "prime" for competition between 3½ and 5 years old, so Mercedes, at 4 years old, is nearing the tail end of that range, Boyles said.

It’s not the first time Boyles has done well at the prestigious dog show.

Mercedes is the cousin of Rumor, another dog Boyle handled. Rumor was a star in the dog show circuit, winning Best in Show in 2017 at Westminster and named after the Adele song "Rumour Has It."

Boyles' website said that he and Liz Oster have “bred more than 100 champions and finishing more than 400 titles in the German Shepherd Dog breed.” In 2018, they won the American Kennel Club’s Breeder of the Year Award.

The 2024 Westminster Dog Show was held at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens, New York.

Boyles said that Westminster only accepts about 2,500 dogs, but many more apply. Qualifying goes to the top five dog breeds and the rest are determined by lottery. That meant Mercedes missed out on last year's competition, as they hadn't started competing yet and weren't selected in the lottery.

The competition takes place across three levels of competition, according to the Westminster website. First is the best of breed or variety competition, which is a judging of only one breed. Those selected as best of breed or variety are then advanced to the group stage.

There are seven groups — sporting, hound, working, terrier, toy, non-sporting and herding — and each group's judge places then first through fourth. The winner of each group then advances to the best in show stage, where a judge names a runner-up and winner.

After Tuesday's competition, Mercedes and Boyles were on their way to another competition, that one in Baltimore, and expect to return to Wisconsin next week. The duo will continue their competition campaign through the year and into early next year, he said.

He said that next February's Westminster Dog Show, the typical month it's held, could be the last time she competes and she'll receive an automatic qualification after this year's results.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Mercedes, a Wisconsin-handled dog, gets runner-up at Westminster