One-year-old Vienna Valazia plays with Guinness, an English Mastif, at the Westminster dog show Tuesday at Madison Square Garden. Reuters

Each year, I vow to attend the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. Unfortunately, I'm usually not aware the dogs and their handlers have hit town until I see them trotting around on TV the night of the finals or read about it in the paper the next morning, by which time it's of course too late. This year, however, I remembered to get tickets some time in January and made it to the early stages of the competition Monday afternoon. The dogs were competing for best in breed. Those winners would move on to the group competition, and the group champions continued to Tuesday night's iconic "Best in Show" finals.

I wasn't sure what I'd encounter when I arrived at Madison Square Garden. My hunch was that I'd meet lots of passionate dog lovers from Georgia or the Midwest wearing sweatshirts of questionable taste with pictures of their favorite breeds. And then, when I proceeded backstage, I'd be tossed into an orgy of dog worship, prize-winning Bichons Frises and Afghans being cooed over by the masses while their finicky handlers clipped their nails and brushed their coats.

My expectations are almost invariably wrong, the reality less romantic than my imagination. But in this case I was right on target. The only difference is that I didn't account for the bonhomie that would permeate the proceedings. I assumed the long knives would be out as Standard Poodles or Pomeranians competed to reach the next round. But the atmosphere was more like a giant house party interrupted by the occasional call to competition.

"When it's time to go to a show and we're getting prepared, she's saying, 'OK, road trip!'" Jeff Heim said, referring to his Toy Manchester Terrier Moxie. Mr. Heim was watching with his video camera at the ready as his wife, Blossom, paraded Moxie around the ring. "They get to know their dog buddies," Mr. Heim, himself a handler with four decades of experience (whose "success was built showing Newfoundlands"), went on. "They get off on seeing other dogs who they compete with on a consistent basis. The bottom line: It's about having fun. It should be about having a really good time."

I wasn't particularly familiar with the breed, which looks like a tiny Doberman or a really slight, long-legged Chihuahua. "They're ratters," Mr. Heim explained. "That's what they were originally used for. And they still do, actually."

I wasn't sure I understood. My notion of champion show dogs was that they basically sat around all day getting their nails done and giving interviews. "If we have a rat on the property," Mr. Heim said, referring to their California home, "it's not there for very long. But in today's world they're primarily companions. They're always pets first, show dogs second."

Let me get this straight—they kill rats? "They'll chase it down and kill it," Mr. Heim said artlessly. "And shake it once and that's the end of the rat."

And then what happens? Do they eat it?

"They leave it," their owner explained. "It becomes a dead rat. No more fun."

I ventured to the "benching" area backstage, and just off the main arena's six judging rings. The area encircled the entire Garden and was filled with extremely clean, attractive (depending on your feelings about particular breeds) and, most impressive of all, well-behaved animals in and out of their carriers, as well as their owners and supporters. If my mutt Mimi had been paraded through there you can be certain there would have been raised hairs, hard feelings and low growls on her part—just about any other canine regarded as a mortal threat until proved otherwise. But nary a snarl nor bark was heard from this entire bunch.

"They start showing at six months old," explained Rhonda Hannah, of why the average Westminster competitor seems so well-acclimated, as her affectionate German Shorthaired Pointer Rizer jumped up on her while waiting to be shown in the junior competition by her daughter Cortney.

Just behind where the Hannahs waited in the wings stood a table filled with what looked like cosmetics and hair sprays, and behind that an area where dogs of various shapes and sizes stood leashed on grooming tables and fussed over by their owners and handlers. I approached a stylish gentleman named George Ortiz seated beside the table, and asked him whether dogs actually required that much product.

Mr. Ortiz explained that the table wasn't set up for pets but for people, that he was a hair stylist working with the " Rachael Ray " show, and that they were performing "ambush makeovers" on some of the dogs' human female handlers.

I don't think I'll be breaking news or ruffling feathers, and if I do so be it, to say that when I watch the annual show on TV I'm as fascinated by the handlers, the female walkers in particular, as by their dogs. And what most fascinates me is their fashion sense, or lack of it. I don't know whether there's a dress code—I noticed a couple of ladies in pants—but the default uniform seems to be an outfit from a '70s church social; a polyester suit, the skirt midknee, and the shoes so sensible they verge on the orthopedic.

I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall at the pitch meeting where the show's producers alighted upon the idea of Westminster. But how does one corral a handler about to head into the ring with Sparky, her Rhodesian Ridgeback (of which there seemed to be a surfeit competing the afternoon of my visit), without grievously wounding her feelings and throwing her off-stride?

"We talk to them a little bit and surprise them," explained Stefanie Javorsky, an associate producer. "It's all about taking care of the dogs; we want to give them a little pampering."

I can see that.

Back in the arena, Moxie had failed to advance to the next round. But her ego appeared thoroughly intact and her owners pleased with the 15-month-old's performance. "They're very playful," Blossom Heim testified, referring to Moxie's home life and that of a second Toy Manchester they show but had remained behind in California. "They want to do whatever you're doing. They meter their activity level to yours. If you're on the couch watching TV, they're on the couch watching TV."

Except, I presume, when they're in the backyard stalking rats.

Write to Ralph Gardner at