Maripi Wooldridge on How to Make Your Dog a Winner

Host Laura Reeves is joined by Maripi Wooldridge, handler of the 1995 Westminster Kennel Club Best in Show winning Scottish Terrier, Ch. Gaelforce Postscript. More recently, Maripi’s Lakeland Terrier MM won the group here in 2022. Maripi takes us through how she thinks about making a dog a winner. [caption id="attachment_13576" align="alignleft" width="468"] Maripi Wooldridge judging the 2024 Wire Fox Terrier National Specialty show.[/caption] LR: If you want your dog to always be best in show ready? Any breed, what are your three top tips? MW: Conditioning both mental and physical. They have to be fed right, exercised right. Mentally, they have to be treated like they’re best in show dogs so they know it. I think you always have to start out with a good dog and people think that ‘oh good enough is good enough’ and good enough is just not good enough. A lot of people do some winning with “good enough” but to really have a top dog you have to have good ones and you have to manage them right. You have to manage how you go to dog shows, where you go to dog shows, and have a good relationship with your clients. Nowadays, there are way fewer good clients and money clients that can afford to do this business. LR: Treat it like a best in show dog. What does that mean to you? What does that look like to you? MW: Well, as far as my breeding program, I bring every puppy up like if it's going to be a good one. I think most good breeders and successful breeders do that. Anybody that can pick a puppy at eight weeks and put their mortgage on it, they’re way better than me. But when you get them in as a handler, they have to feel special. They have to feel special over the class dogs that are gonna go home in a month and a half. They have to have things whether it's walks, whether it's put on the table every day, and even if you just brush their coats or clean their coats or pet 'em, so that they know they are special. Bring them in last instead of first, so that they are the big dogs around. I mean, little things that mean a lot to the dogs that people don't even think about. First out in the morning, that's very big if you want a dog to feel special. It makes a huge difference, especially with the smart breeds. I mean, there's some dogs that doesn't really matter, they're fine, I'm here. But with breeds that are clever and smart, you have to bend over backwards. I had an assistant when I was showing Peggy Sue that would go in the crate room in the middle of the night with a flashlight to look into her crate to see how she was laying because she would wake up in the morning and have like a little wrinkle on the side of her coat. So she made bedding so that she would not get that little wrinkle on the side of her thigh. That level of attention is absolutely needed for a dog to give you everything they have. The second half of the episode is available for Patrons Only. Subscribe at https://puredogtalk.com/patron/to hear more from Maripi's decades of insight.