The Remarkable Wicked: America’s Top Working Dog

Published December 18, 2023

5 min read

Orlando, Florida A three-year-old Doberman Pinscher, Wicked, clinched the win for the American Kennel Club’s 2023 Working Group competition Sunday evening. 

Wicked has a calm but commanding presence, despite her name. She was a crowd favorite during the Best of Breed competition and her energy and charisma impressed everyone.

At the AKC, “working dog” is a category, such as sporting dog, though the judges don’t evaluate the dog’s actual occupation. Instead, they look for characteristics the canines have honed over thousands of years of domestication.

During the competition, dogs’ movements across the ring demonstrate whether they’re physically up to the task for which they’ve been bred. Dobermans at a fast trot, for example, must maintain a straight back and “single track”—in other words, their feet move in one line, a configuration that would allow them to advance straight at an attacker.

First bred as a guard dog in Germany in the late 1800s, Dobermans have a fearless, loyal, and obedient temperament. The animal should also be square, with a flat back, a 45-degree angle of the shoulders, a wedge-shaped head, and almond-shaped eyes. Four or more missing teeth or teeth that are misaligned to a certain degree can also disqualify a Doberman.

Gina DiNardo, assistant vice president for AKC, was not a judge at the event, but says she “grew up breeding and showing Dobermans with my parents, who owned some of the top Dobermans in the history of the sport.”

Wicked “embodies many qualities as exactly described in the breed standard,” DiNardo says, and “she is trained and conditioned to perfection.”

Working dogs help people “and make their lives better in a variety of ways,” DiNardo adds. That might mean detecting bombs, providing emotional support, or sniffing out illnesses such as cancer or diabetes. (Read “What does cancer smell like? These animals can sniff it out.”)

On the clock

The biggest dog show in North America, AKC welcomes nearly 10,000 dogs into various competitions, from Best in Show to Fastest Dog USA. Thirty-one working dogs participated in Sunday’s event, held at the Orlando Convention Center. (Read Meet Phelan the rescue pup—now America’s fastest dog.)

The 31 dogs in the Working Group were chosen earlier that day in Best of Breed competitions.

The entrants included an Akita, an ancient Japanese breed that protected families. These animals prove themselves by stoically and silently focusing on a treat. 

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