10 Questions ...

Profession: Retired music and art therapist who worked both in psychiatry and geriatrics. Handled on weekends for 20 years. (Back then, the shows were two days; every-weekend clusters were not very popular yet.)

Dog-sport involvement: Involved since the early 1970s. My brother married a woman whose aunt was a well-known Sheltie breeder, Naomi Chapman of Camelot Shelties. I started going to shows with her, met handler Joe Molloy and began traveling with him.

Hometown: Grew up in Skokie, Illinois (primarily a Jewish suburb of Chicago).

Astrological sign: Cancer, but I am atypical, don't cook!

1. Do you have any dog-show superstitions?  

I always match jewelry to whatever outfit I wear. Much of it was my mother's, and none of it is costume jewelry!

2. TV-show guilty pleasure?

“General Hospital” – since the very first episode in 1963, haven't ever missed one! Any and all “Law and Order” and most anything on Animal Planet.

3. If you were president of AKC for one day, what would you do?  

Get a new company to write the breed tests for judges ... one who has a better understanding of our sport. In all my years of education, they are the worst tests I have ever encountered. Particularly the latest versions that scream "INCORRECT" at you and don't allow you to go back and see what your error was.

4. Most valued material possession?

The aforementioned jewelry.

5. What is something no one would guess about you?

That I often feel depressed about the anger and conflict in the world today and how we are rapidly destroying the beauty of this world with pollution and overuse of resources.

6. Who would you compare yourself to?

In dogs, Dorothy Schroeder Welsh, a wonderful woman who was incredibly supportive and helpful to this new judge many moons ago. I try to do the same to new judges. It is no fun being on a panel where no one sits down with you at lunch or invites you to have dinner.

7. What are you “famous” for?

Singing in many, many professional musical productions in the Chicago area with some very well-known performers since I was eight years old. Whenever Northwestern University needed a kid for a musical, it was me, and in the days of tenthouse theater in the summertime, I was the first one they called.

8. What website do you visit most often?

USA Today – love the puzzles!

9. What was more memorable, your most satisfying win or disappointing defeat? And what was it?

Finishing my first homebred Shetland Sheepdog champion by myself, Ch. Sonata's Blue Suede Shoes (Elvis). All defeats are disappointing!

10. What do you wish someone would ask you?

To judge BIS at Westminster.