Watch your step around stars of Westminster Dog Show

FROM NEW YORK — Page 2 here at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, which begins Monday, but first the PETaPOTTY party.

Try saying that three times in a row while having a drink and watching the floor to avoid stepping on a Shih Tzu.

The Celtics are playing across the street in Madison Square Garden, while here at the Fashion Show on the 18th floor of the Hotel Pennsylvania, hundreds of guests and dogs are dressed alike, Eli the Chihuahua wearing a wonderful silver satin fabric shirt, full vest, of course, with black and clear rhinestones.

Eli the Chihuahua, by the way, is better dressed than Myung J. Chun, The Times' videographer, who is here to document the next few days. Chun, told he'd be shooting video of the dogs in New York, initially thinks he's going to a Clippers game.

AIRFARE TO New York, cab ride, hotel room, expensive restaurants and there is no prize money at Westminster. Yet there are more than 2,400 dogs here representing 170 breeds competing for ribbons and an ego boost -- Choking Dogs for some reason not recognized as an official breed, but still California with 265 entrants to lead all states.

A beagle, Uno, won last year. A Brussels griffon, Lincoln, is favored this year. A writer, Charlotte Reed, quotes Uno extensively in something called "the blue boo," and people think Uno is special.

There are 1,000 dogs staying in the Pennsylvania, and while I wonder who is checking into these rooms next week, there's no containing the excitement of Jerry Grymek, who is wearing a name tag that identifies him as hotel "doggie concierge."

"We welcome you with open paws, ha, ha," Jerry says, obviously wanting to be a doggie concierge ever since he was a little pup.

"Oh, let me show you our doggie spaw -- ha, ha," he says, "where everyone is considered a VIP, ha, ha, very important pooch."

There isn't a blade of grass or a tree within miles of here, "but we have a loo downstairs for our guests with separate his and her areas because everyone gets their privacy," says the concierge.

Just outside the loo, there's also a "tip jar for Pepe la Pue," and while not spelled correctly, I think I know who came up with that idea. Ha, ha.

I wonder, though, who will be using the exhibition area next week, right now the floor covered in wood shavings, red fire hydrants on the left for the boys, a pink settee and glitter saw dust on the right for the girls and 1,000 dogs seemingly always on the go here.