When the manager of the hotel is showing the various cleaning products, he mentions a rock band trashing their room and roasting a goat. The rock band is, of course, the one from This Is Spinal Tap (1984), which featured many of the same actors as this film.
Fred Willard (Buck Laughlin) was specifically instructed by Christopher Guest not to do any research on dogs. Jim Piddock (Trevor Beckwith), on the other hand, had to do a lot of dog research so that his character would appear knowledgeable. As a result, Guest says some viewers are surprised to learn Piddock is not a real dog show judge.
Much of the film was improvised. The narrative outline was only 16 pages long.
Years before work on this film began, Christopher Guest wrote down the words "catalog people" on a piece of paper. That simple idea eventually became Parker Posey and Michael Hitchcock's characters in this film.