The National Dog Show is giving us some sense of normalcy in 2020 ... COVID be damned.
The Kennel Club of Philadelphia kept the Thanksgiving Day tradition alive with its annual dog show ... though things did look a little different out there, and understandably so. There was no crowd to cheer on the pooches prancing and strutting their stuff on the floor.
The winner this year -- a Scottish Deerhound named Claire. Congrats to the doggie!!!
And, without a crowd, it looks like the KCP borrowed a page from pro sports teams ... using cutouts of dogs and their owners to fill the seats. Those who bought cutouts were also supporting a great cause ... with proceeds going to the AKC Pet Disaster Fund.
The show -- which aired on NBC after the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade -- complied with COVID-19 safety protocols to pull off the show, which is remarkable in and of itself.
The humans wore masks. As for the dogs ... there's usually around 2,000 competing, but this time around only 600.
Instead of two shows over the course of the weekend ... there was only one show split into two days, which were filmed on November 14 and 15. Despite all of these restrictions ... the show still managed to introduce 3 new dog breeds -- the Barbet, the Belgian Laekenois and the Dogo Argentino.