Sonoma breeder’s Portuguese water dog wins big at Westminster Dog Show

“This is like winning at Wimbledon,” said her husband proudly. “This will put Julie [Conger] on the map as the premier PWD breeder in the country.”|

That unusual haircut

Portuguese water dogs are bred to help on fishing boats – diving into the water to retrieve fish and nets. They need a lot of hair to protect their hearts from the cold. Their hinder quarters are shaved for ease of swimming. Their tail is used a rudder and the poof at the end is called the “flag” so the fisherman can easily spot them in the water.

Some people take up gardening when they retire. Others learn to watercolor. When Oakland Superior Court Judge Julie Conger retired from the bench after 25 years, she began breeding and showing Portuguese water dogs.

On Tuesday, her dog “Bernie” won Best of Breed at the 143rd annual Westminster Dog Show in New York City.

“This is like winning at Wimbledon,” said her husband Bruce Hoadley proudly, when reached by phone later that day. “This will put Julie on the map as the premier PWD breeder in the country.”

Bernie is Conger’s fourth dog to be entered at Westminster and the first to win its breed. Two of her previous dogs had won national championships, but none had won at Westminster.

Bernie, whose full name is “Feel the Burn de Remis,” won three prominent shows back-to-back in the weeks leading up to Westminster, but his success in New York was unexpected. It was the 62-pound dog’s first time on an airplane and Conger said he had vastly less show experience than his competitors.

Almost 3,000 dogs – and almost 200 qualifying breeds – compete at the Westminster Dog Show at Madison Square Garden each winter. Winning “Best of Breed” advances a dog to a category round – for PWDs, the “Working Group” event. The winners of each category event competes for Best in Show. On Wednesday night, a Wire Fox Terrier named King was named Westminster’s 2019 Best in Show winner.

Conger and Bernie flew home to Sonoma late on Wednesday night. She and Hoadley have lived in a dog-friendly house high up in Sonoma’s Diamond A neighborhood for the past decade. In addition to Bernie and his championship-winning father, Manly, Conger also owns four female dogs, which she breeds.

Because of the risks of unsanctioned breeding, when Bernie is not competing, he lives in Glen Ellen with Bernie’s part-owner Ed Ristad, the founder of Ed’s Garage, which later became Williams Auto Repair.

Bernie’s third owner, Remy Smith-Lewis, grooms and trains Bernie, and was his handler at Westminster.

“Westminster is like our Super Bowl,” said Smith-Lewis by phone on Thursday. “I was so proud of Bernie as he is a young and relatively inexperienced show dog and I asked a lot of him at the show and he gave it 110 percent.”

When Conger got her first Portuguese water dog in 2007, she knew nothing about dog shows. One day, she was on vacation with “Joaquin the Dog” (say it out loud) in Cambria and a dog show judge approached her on the beach and told her that he would be an incredible show dog. Joaquin was scheduled to be neutered when they returned, but Conger canceled the procedure and set about learning more.

She got a lot of advice in the early days from dog show judge and Sonoma resident Sally George, who owns Aberglen Kennels.

“It was Sally who first pointed out to me Bernie’s potential,” said Conger.

Today, she oversees breeding and works with Smith-Lewis and other experienced handlers to train and show her dogs. She has sold around 185 Portuguese Water Dog puppies over the past decade, and has a waiting list of 40 people eager to pay $2,500 each, the standard breed price. Her husband tells an entertaining story about coming “this close” to providing President Barack Obama with his PWDs.

Two-year-old Bernie has had a busy winter. He was bred for the first time twice in the weeks prior to Westminster and Conger expects to welp, or deliver, as many as 20 of his puppies next month.

Breeding and showing dogs is not a money-making enterprise for Conger. Her husband suggested that with Bernie’s success at Westminster, she should jack up the price for his offspring.

Conger laughed and said, “No way. His namesake (Bernie Sanders) would be appalled if we did that.”

Email Lorna at lorna.sheridan@sonomanews.com.

That unusual haircut

Portuguese water dogs are bred to help on fishing boats – diving into the water to retrieve fish and nets. They need a lot of hair to protect their hearts from the cold. Their hinder quarters are shaved for ease of swimming. Their tail is used a rudder and the poof at the end is called the “flag” so the fisherman can easily spot them in the water.

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