Michigan teen and her dog to compete in Westminster dog show

Lihi Ruvio was 10 years old when she first stepped in a dog show ring at the United Kennel Club show in Whitmore Lake seven years ago. The little girl masterfully guided Allora, a 110-pound gray Italian mastiff, around the ring that day perfectly — well almost.

"I tripped over myself and I fell down and I started crying," Ruvio said. "My mom offered to take Allora back in the ring, but I was like, 'No, I want to do it.’ When I fell down, Allora stood still and let me get up and take my time."

Ruvio's grit paid off: She led Allora to win best-in-show later that day. Now she is shooting for another best-in-show title, but on a bigger stage with a different dog.

Next month, Ruvio, now 17, will be competing at the Super Bowl of dog shows: Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show in New York. It won't be the first time a dog from Michigan is in the big show. Ruvio showed her dog Royal there in recent years. But in 2018, a male bichon frisé named Flynn, who lives in Plymouth, won best-in-show at Westminster. Also, in 1993, a 5-year-old liver-and-white English springer spaniel called Robert won. He was owned by Donna and Roger Herzig, of Louisville, Kentucky, and Julia Gasow, of Troy, according to the New York Times.

This year, Ruvio won a spot to compete at Westminster with her 3-year-old gray female Italian mastiff, Sage. Sage is relatively new to the show circuit, but she has gravitas that gives her an edge, Ruvio said.

"When you look at Sagey, you are looking into her soul," Ruvio said. "Because that is what she is doing to you.”

The dog who will die for you, literally ...

It's a mildly cold day in early March when Ruvio steps onto the back porch with Allora by her side at her parents' house on 4 acres in Williamston, just southeast of East Lansing. The house is where Black Pearl Cane Corso Kennel operates and is home to Allora, Sage and five other Italian mastiffs — officially called the cane corso (con-ay corso) breed.

The breed dates to the ancient Romans, according to the American Kennel Club. The cane corso dog is known for being smart, trainable, confident, loyal and brave. Its name translates from Latin as "bodyguard dog," AKC said.

“A corso would die for you. Literally, will die for you," said Ayalla (Eye-alla) Ruvio, who is Lihi Ruvio's mother and the owner of Black Pearl Cane Corso Kennel. She has been breeding cane corso dogs for two decades and currently has seven of the massive dogs living with the family. “There’s nothing they won’t do for you. But you have to earn their respect.”

The dogs stand nearly 28 inches to the shoulder and often top 100 pounds. They have a large head, attentive expression and visibly toned muscles beneath a short coat. Their size and musculature alone could be intimidating, but Ayalla Ruvio's dogs are all trained to be therapy dogs. Her dog, Royal, 7, recently comforted Michigan State University students traumatized by a shooting that left three students dead and five injured. Royal, who happens to be Allora's son, also has a unique universal blood type that allows him to donate blood to save other dogs' lives.

The Black Pearl dogs are also show dogs and some of them do Schutzhund — a dog sport that tests a dog's athleticism, obedience, tracking and guarding skills. Cane corsos need the versatility of all those activities, Ayalla Ruvio said.

“Cane corso are extremely intelligent, you need to make them do what you want, you cannot force them because they are so strong and powerful," Ayalla Ruvio said. "You need to put them in a situation where they want to do what you tell them to do. So we invest a lot of time in training and obedience.”

Ready to 'wow' the judges

Back on the porch, Lihi Ruvio moves effortlessly in a pale blue skirt and purple blazer — her dog show attire. She has a poise and confidence that belies her age and she is immune to the late winter chill because she's on the Williamston High School swim team and accustomed to the cold, she said. She first introduces Allora to a Free Press reporter and photographer. Allora, now an old lady at nearly 11, is friendly and curious. Ruvio takes Allora inside and next brings out Sage, the female who will compete at Westminster.

Sage, whose proper full name listed on her pedigree papers is Grand Champion Mar E Sol's Dawn of Sage, is regal, beautiful, but with a mind — and a will — of her own. She holds some titles so far: Grand Champion, AKC Canine Good Citizen, AKC Community Canine, therapy dog, AKC Trick Dog and Intermediate Trick Dog. A trick dog masters obedience maneuvers that can be choreographed into trick routines. Sage is at the intermediate level.

Lihi Ruvio takes charge, leading Sage in a graceful trot around the yard and then stopping to move Sage's legs and body into a position that shows off the breed's best features. The move is called stacking. Sage stands noble, head high, her muscles rippling beneath her long legs. Lihi and Ayalla Ruvio work with Sage and the other dogs for dozens of hours a week. They do it in short sessions throughout the day and make it fun for them because dogs tend to have short attention spans. So, even when making dinner, they are training the dog to sit and stay, for example.

The Ruvios start training the dogs pretty much from the moment the animals open their eyes because at 6 months old, the dogs are 80 pounds: "That's a big puppy, so they have to be meticulously behaved," said Ayalla Ruvio. Royal first started competing in dog shows at 6 months old, not to win, but for him to become accustomed to being in the ring and adjust to any stresses of the situation.

“Sage is very pretty, she’s very elegant in her movement and she knows how to give a performance if she decides to give it," Ayalla Ruvio said. "She is very feminine, but she’s also very intense. That’s a real corso. A corso needs to be impressive and be a show-stopper. You need to look at it and say ‘wow’ and she is a ‘wow.' "

A professional hands it over to a little girl

Lihi Ruvio grew up around the dogs and, despite showing Allora at age 10, she didn't get serious about being a handler until she was 12. And it was by accident.

Ayalla Ruvio had a professional handler ready to compete with her dog Royal at a show in Lansing. But the handler was showing a dog for another client in a different ring and was running late. So little Lihi Ruvio took Royal into the ring to show him until the pro could get there. But when the professional handler arrived and saw Lihi Ruvio, he didn't interrupt her performance.

"He just watched her and at the end of the show, which we won, he came to me and said, ‘I can take your money, but she does a much better job with him than I do. She needs to show him,' " Ayalla Ruvio said.

Ayalla Ruvio said her daughter's success in winning hundreds of ribbons over the past seven years comes down to the simple fact that she makes the dog happy in the ring and lets the dog have fun.

"You can have a good dog, but if your handler can't make the dog present itself at its best, the dog will not do well," Ayalla Ruvio said. "The handler plays an important role in having a good connection, keeping the dog happy in the ring because it shows to the judge that you’re having a good time, the dog is having a good time.”

Going to the big leagues of dog shows

The first time Lihi Ruvio handled a dog at Westminster was in 2020. She was 14 and she and Royal were selected as part of a lottery to be part of the show that consisted of more than 3,000 dogs that year. They didn't win anything that time but it was an experience to see the intense competition.

Dogs get into Westminster two ways: They can either be entered and drawn from a lottery or they can be invited by being one of the top five dogs in a breed. Dogs accumulate points for winning various shows throughout the year and the five with the top points are automatically invited to Westminster.

"It was very crowded and you had to be there on time at 8 in the morning or they wouldn’t let you in and you had to stay the whole day until 3 p.m. at least," Ruvio said. "We almost missed our ring time because I couldn’t get through the people and they weren’t moving so that was a little nerve-wracking."

Ayalla calls dog shows a lesson in humanity, both the good and the bad. Anyone who has seen the mockumentary "Best in Show," with Christopher Guest, knows the over-the-top characterizations of some dog handlers and owners. The movie is exaggeration for entertainment, Ayalla Ruvio said but, "it’s a business and when you do it for a living, it’s a whole different situation from when you do it because you love it.”

Ayalla and Lihi Ruvio's dogs, for example, are their pets who snooze next to them on the couch when at home. Ayalla Ruvio is a professor at Michigan State University. Lihi Ruvio, who does some of her high school classes virtually when she travels for dog shows, will go to college in the fall and wants to become a dog chiropractor one day because, "Everyone who will come to me wants something better for their dog and I love that.”

But showing dogs can be an expensive hobby with the cost of hotels, paid ads in dog publications to promote your dog, transportation to dog shows and trainer and handler fees in some cases. It can cost up to $60,000 a year, Ayalla Ruvio said, or more. In the case of Flynn, the bichon frisé who won Best-In-Show in 2018, it cost his owners over $250,000 to show him for one 18-month period, said Lorrie Carlton, one of his owners, who lives with Flynn in Plymouth. Flynn has five owners, including Carlton and her husband, Lawrence Letsche, to help offset the costs of showing a dog.

And unlike some other competitions, winning dogs at Westminster and most other dog shows do not take home a purse.

Finally winning at Westminster

The next time Lihi Ruvio returned to Westminster was in 2021 at age 15, with Royal, whose full pedigree name is Black Pearl Guardiano Dei Reali. In Italian that translates to "Guardian of the Royals," Ayalla Ruvio said.

"He went Select dog, which was phenomenal because there weren’t just ranked dogs from that year. Because of COVID, they had multiple dogs throughout the years, the past three years, that were Top-Five ranked dogs. So we had about 15 dogs in the ring that were Top-Five ranked," Ayalla Ruvio said.

The Select Dog award is given to the champion dog "recognized as the next best" of their gender after Best of Breed and Best of Opposite gender, according to the AKC. This year, the Ruvios hope Sage can win Best of Opposite if a male wins Best of Breed.

In the history of AKC, Ayalla Ruvio said no cane corso has won a group placement in its group, which is the working group, or won best-in-show. "Our breed is considered a rare breed," Ayalla Ruvio said. "It’s very hard.”

In 2022, Royal had the honor of being invited to compete at Westminster because he was a Top Five-ranked dog in his breed in the country at that point from having won other shows. He and Lihi Ruvio, then age 16, again won Select dog.

The thrill of victory for Flynn

But getting to the podium is sweet reward, said Carlton, who has been working with bichon frisé dogs since 1975. When Flynn, whose pedigree name is GrCHP (Grand Champion Platinum) Belle Creek’s All I Care About Is Love, beat about 2,500 dogs at Westminster in Madison Square Gardens in 2018 to win Best-In-Show, it was "the pinnacle of my career," she said.

“It’s exhausting, it’s exhilarating, its nerve-wracking, it’s all kinds of emotions you never thought you’d experience," Carlton told the Free Press.

She remembers every second. As the judges examined each dog in the final round, she said that she wanted to cover her eyes and "throw up because you're so nervous."

Then one of the judges gave the audience "a really nice synopsis of breeding pure-bred dogs, then she turned and said, 'The winner is the bichon frisé.' I get goose bumps talking about it now. It was total elation. Oh my God, I can’t believe it! Flynn jumped on the podium, he’s quite a ham. He loves everyone and when he was in the ring that’s his thing. He enjoyed showing off.”

The win set off a whirlwind of activity for Carlton and the team with an afterglow party that lasted until the early morning hours, then having the dog in the hotel lobby by 6 a.m. to tour New York City and be on "Good Morning America," Fox Sports, "The View" and go to the top of the Empire State Building, just to list a few of Flynn's events. Flynn's handler was Bill McFadden and Flynn lived with him until Flynn retired in 2018. The pup now lives with Carlton and her husband in Plymouth.

Carlton knows Lihi Ruvio and said her talent as a handler cannot be underestimated.

"When you get to that level of a show, it has to be a team," Carlton said. "So it’s an attitude, it’s preparation, it’s the handler's attitude, it’s everything as a unit. Having a 17-year-old young lady going to Westminster multiple times with a big dog is wonderful. I cannot wish her enough of best luck.”

Ruvio's ready, her dog will be presented perfectly

Lihi Ruvio said she is ready for Westminster, as Sage playfully licks her face. "I’m never afraid of competition and I’m definitely ready to go up against top dogs and to be in that circle," she said.

She admits she gets some pre-show jitters before stepping in the ring, but once inside, "we own the ring," she said.

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"It’s just me and my dog in the ring. We blank out everything," Lihi Ruvio said. "I’m 100% paying attention to the moment the judge looks at me, even if he’s looking at another dog, if the judge glances in my direction, my dog will be stacked to perfection.”

The Westminster dog show runs May 6-May 9 in New York City. FOX will livestream each event on FS1 and FS2 together with more live coverage on westminsterkennelclub.org.

Contact Jamie L. LaReau: jlareau@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @jlareauan. Read more on General Motors and sign up for our autos newsletter. Become a subscriber.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan teen and her dog to compete in Westminster dog show