The Cooks, who have loved and raised Bernese mountain dogs for years, are the proud owners of George, holder of a Best in Breed title from the prestigious Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.
Written by Leslie Criss | Photographed by Joe Worthem
Kathy Kirk Cook remembers vividly the day she fell in love — not with a boy, but with a breed. She’d graduated from Vanderbilt, moved to Colorado and was waiting tables at a restaurant in Vail.
A couple seated in the eatery’s outdoor patio had their two dogs with them.
“They were the most well-behaved, majestic, beautiful dogs I had ever seen,” Kathy said. “My mind was not on waiting tables. All I wanted was to meet these dogs and talk to the people about them.”
A Southerner from birth, Kathy had never seen dogs like these before. Bernese mountain dogs are more a northern breed, but she decided that day, she would one day have a Berner.
In 1991, when she was on staff at Young Life Camp in North Carolina, she met another staffer, Kenny Cook from Georgia. They became friends and later began dating. In one conversation, a question arose: If you could have any breed of dog, what would it be?
“Before I could even offer my answer, Kenny quickly voiced his preference — Bernese mountain dog,” Kathy said. “I couldn’t believe I had heard those words come from his mouth.”
The two married in 1992. Not long after, Nashville became home while Kenny attended Vanderbilt to become a nurse practitioner. It was there the Cooks got Bunson, their first Berner, about the same time they had their first child, Haley. From Nashville they moved to Greensboro, North Carolina, where their son Noah was born, and finally to Tupelo, where Kathy’s father was ill.
“I wanted the kids to know Dad better while he was still with us,” she said.
When Kathy had seen her first Berners, she was initially attracted by their looks, but, as they started their young family, it was the breed’s temperament that was most attractive. They are exceptionally sweet dogs who love kids.
A downside of Berners is that their lifespan is typically only about 8 years. Bunson was almost 10 when they lost him to malignant histiocytosis, an extremely aggressive form of cancer and a major cause of death for Berners.
With broken hearts but still lovers of the breed, the Cooks began a deep dive into researching the health issues of Bernese mountain dogs.
“So many of their health issues are genetic, so it is paramount to get a puppy from someone who is very careful about breeding healthy dogs,” Kathy said.
Doing their research, the Cooks learned about preservation breeders — those who work to sustain and safeguard the health of their breed so that its existence continues. Their careful research also led them to Virginia to pick up a Berner puppy named Maggie.
“We thought we might want to breed these dogs, and we quickly found that a good breeder is going to first be very careful about to whom they sell their best puppies, and secondly, that they are going to want you to show that puppy, ideally to its championship, before breeding it,” Kathy said. “Well, I had never even been to a dog show at this point. But, we agreed, and signed a five-page contract, and brought Maggie home.
“With a lot of help from many kind people, I learned to show Maggie and made a lot of friends in the dog show world.”
Maggie lived just shy of age 10, having had one litter of five beautiful pups, three of which stayed in Tupelo and were loved by great families.
From her time going to dog shows, including Westminster, as a spectator, Kathy had fallen in love with a dog from New Jersey named Timer and a girl named Scarlett, who was from a breeder in Canada whom she had long admired.
“To me, to get one of those puppies would be like getting a foal out of Secretariat,” Kathy said. “Out of nine puppies, there was one special boy left, and we got lucky enough to get him.”
Three days before Christmas, Kathy and Haley drove to New York City to pick up George.
“He was a beautiful puppy, but we didn’t know yet if he would turn out to be a great show dog. But when he grew up a little and we started getting him to shows, he won almost everywhere we entered.”
Then COVID shut everything down, just as George was about to come into his own. But in the spring of 2021, George was entered in a huge show in Raleigh, North Carolina, with his new handler, Lenny Brown, one of the best in the country. All of the top Berners were at this show, including the reigning Westminster winner for the breed.
“We were shocked when George won either first or second place four days in a row, against Westminster-level competition,” Kathy said.
When George won Best of Breed in that show, he advanced into the Working Group, and this show was televised. So, Kathy was given a media form to complete for the announcers to have information about George when he was on camera. As a young, not very seasoned contender, George did not have much information on his media card.
“There was just not a lot to put down,” Kathy said. “So, we went big on Tupelo.”
George’s media card read: George is from Tupelo, Mississippi. Birthplace of Elvis.
“The announcers loved that,” Kathy said.
Three months later, George showed at Westminster.
“We applied and got in,” Kathy said. “It’s limited to 2,500 dogs and 31 of the top Berners in the country were there. We didn’t really have any expectations that he would win, just hoping he might be in the ribbons.
“Kenny and I hid so George would not look for us in the crowd. When the judge pulled George out first, we couldn’t believe it was real.”
It was real, and there are photos to prove that GCHS CH Greenway’s Divine Prince George won Best of Breed at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show in 2021 and was on TV that evening representing the Berners in the Working Group.
The 120-pound George is 6 ½ years old now, and while he is mostly retired, he still gets out to an occasional show.
“He’s already accomplished more than we had ever hoped,” Kathy said. “He enjoys being a spoiled rotten member of our family these days, and we are glad to oblige.”
Bernerfest
There aren’t a lot of Bernese mountain dogs in the South, but Kathy and Kenny Cook have tried to connect with as many as possible.
Since 2014, a regular gathering of Berners and their humans has taken place in Yalobusha County at the Cook family farm, Quail Hill. It’s either in October or November when it’s cool enough for the dogs to play. The congregation of canines has also been hosted in Oxford by Joanne Oliver and Gary Wright, who have three Berners.
It’s a fun Sunday afternoon when the people, over wine, cheese and snacks, swap Berner stories and get to know one another.
“When the dogs get out of the cars and recognize they are all Berners, they have a ball,” Kathy said. “We call it our Bernerfest.”
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