Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show

The Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show is an all-breed conformation show, held annually in the New York metropolitan area.

The Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show is one of a handful of benched shows in the United States. Dogs are required to be on display in their assigned locations (show benches) during the entire show except when shown in the ring, groomed for showtime, or taken outside to urinate or defecate. This type of presentation allows spectators and breeders alike to have an opportunity of seeing all the entered dogs. (In the more common unbenched shows, dogs are required to be present only at assigned ring times.)^[1]

The event has long been associated with the various incarnations of New York City's Madison Square Garden, which hosted the event nearly uninterrupted from 1877 to 2020. Its hosting streak was disrupted in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic; from 2021 to 2024, the event was delayed to a late-Spring/early-Summer scheduling and held at outdoor venues instead, with the 2021 and 2022 editions held at the grounds of the Lyndhurst mansion in Tarrytown, New York, and the 2023 and 2024 editions held at Billie Jean King National Tennis Center and Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens. In 2025, the event returned to Madison Square Garden and its traditional scheduling for the first time since 2020.

The logo of both the Westminster Kennel Club and its Dog Show is based on a steel engraving by artist J. Wellstood of Sensation, a Pointer brought over from England by the organization in 1876 primarily for breeding purposes.^[2]