Up until last month, one of the world's largest collections of dog-related art resided outside St. Louis inside a museum that most of the locals didn't even know about: The Museum Of The Dog. That changed last month, when the museum officially relocated to midtown Manhattan.  Annie interviews the museum's executive directly, Alan Fausel, about the museum's collection, history, and fan favorites. 

Annie will be doing a free training demo at the museum this Saturday, March 30th, at 1pm. Stop by! 

Learn More at museumofthedog.org

Are you enjoying School For The Dogs Podcast? Please leave us a 5-star rating on iTunes and make sure to follow us on Instagram! 

Partial Transcript:

Annie:

Hey everyone. Thank you, as always, for listening. If you are a dog lover in New York City, or maybe if you’re not in New York City, you may have heard that the Museum of the Dog has just opened, after spending many years in St. Louis it is now located in Manhattan on 41st and Park. And I am actually going to be at the Museum this Saturday, March 30 from 1 to 2  doing a training demonstration. So if you're around please come on by, it is free.  Sadly, it is not open to dogs but my dog will be there doing a demo.

And today, I have the pleasure of speaking with the Museum's Executive Director.  Alan, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself.

Alan:

My name is Alan Fausel, I’m the Executive Director of the AKC Museum of the Dog which has just been moved from St. Louis to New York.

Annie:

And were you the director also in St. Louis?

Alan:

No, I was not. I had an association with the AKC for years, when I was doing open houses at Doyle and Bonhams in New York and we always had them as one of our charity benefactors for the Humane Fund. So I knew the people in the collection and actually appraised the collection.

Annie:

What did you think of the collection when you first saw it?

Alan:

I have known it for years and there are some really great things here and also I went out to St. Louis twice before I took the job, you know, over the years. There are some fabulous paintings here and also a lot of interesting other teachable things that we have besides paintings and sculptures but there's also collars, trophies, a whole variety of things we call “doggyama.”

Annie:

Doggyama, I loved it. So tell me about how the museum first got stopped.

Alan:

It got started in the early 80s, so a number of people from the AKC and dog lovers formed a foundation because they didn't like the fact that Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge’s collection in the ‘70s had, sort of, been dispersed, they thought they wanted to retain some of this.

Annie:

I don’t know about her collection. What was her collection?

Alan:

It was several thousand pieces. She was a huge- she was behind the  Morrison Essex dog show and was the preeminent dog person in the United States.

Annie:

And she was an art collector and a dog lover, I’m guessing.

Alan:

Yep, a dog breeder. She had hundreds of dogs at any one time.

Annie:

She was a Rockefeller?

Alan:

Yes, Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge in New Jersey.

Annie:

And what kind of dogs did she breed.

Alan:

Uh, German Shepherds were the main ones. I also think there were some Bedlingtons in there and Cocker Spaniels. She was instrumental in the development of American Cocker Spaniel, as opposed to the English Cocker Spaniel...

Full Transcript at Schoolforthedogs.com/Podcasts

Get full access to Don't Be a Dick to Your Dog at dogtraining.substack.com/subscribe