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AKC/Eukanuba Flashback: Knotty’s Triumph and Tragedy

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AKC Gazette, “Times Past”“He floats around a show ring with his feet lightly skimming the ground. His tail arches slightly over his back and sways like a homecoming queen’s well practiced wave. His coat glistens and his skin jiggles. He smiles. It’s impossible to take your eyes off him because Knotty isn’t just competing, he’s performing.”

That’s how the Los Angeles Times described Ch. Heathers Knock on Wood, the Bloodhound judged Best in Show by Michele Billings at the 2005 AKC/Eukanuba National Championship.

During the mid-2000s Knotty owned the Hound Group. With handler Ken Griffith, Knotty set a breed record with 31 Bests in Show in 2004. He was ranked number one in the group and number five among all breeds. He was a 2005 Westminster group winner. But perhaps the best indicator of his charisma and crossover appeal took place at ground zero of American culture: He had his own float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

“He looks for an audience,” owner Lyn Sherman, of Topanga, California, said of her russet-colored superstar. “He’s like the guys on the beach who think they’re hot.”

Teams of Pixar animators working in shifts couldn’t have designed a sweeter face than Knotty’s. It was the mask of a sad clown, the frontispiece in the book of woe-is-me, the face of a comedian whose melancholy provoked our mirth. His eyes were warm and deeply set beneath a wrinkled brow. Gravity tugged loose skin and heavy flews into a delightful caricature of concern, framed by long ears that fell in graceful folds like a set of velveteen drapes. Judges were putty in his meaty paws.

When not commanding show rings, Knotty was a typical Bloodhound. He might spend long hours napping, then, as once happened, slip through an open gate to trail a passing motorcycle—for 32 miles! A relieved Sherman got a call from the bemused biker saying her dog was in his garage, safe and sound, and needed a ride home.

On a morning two years after their AKC/Eukanuba win, while Knotty and Sherman were out for their daily run, disaster struck. “Knotty heard a noise before I did, and dove into a bush and found a snake,” Sherman said. “As he so often did, he had jumped out in front to protect me from something.”

The diamondback rattler bit Knotty on the hind leg. With long, expensive treatment, Knotty was able to resume the life of a celebrity show dog—for a while. “He was such a fighter,” Sherman said, “The liver recovered, but the kidneys did not mend so well. So 13 months after the bite, we helped him over the rainbow bridge so he wouldn’t suffer.” Knotty died in 2008.

“He was first my pet, and then my show dog. I fed him, walked him, and conditioned him every day. We traveled everywhere together,” Sherman said of her once-in-a-lifetime hound. “He was such a character. Everyone loved him.”—Bud Boccone

Read the latest AKC Gazette here, and follow us on Facebook.

The AKC/Eukanuba National Championship begins December 13. Follow the action via streaming video at akc.org.



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