September 5, 1982

EVERY September, the county becomes the focal point in America for dog lovers. This year, it will be next Sunday when the gates of a famous estate on the Hudson swing open to the country's canine aristocracy, as the Westchester Kennel Club holds its annual extravaganza. It all started in 1905, when a small group of men staged the first Westchester show in conjunction with a fair at White Plains. It lasted for three days and drew 330 dogs. The current edition, at Lyndhurst, a national landmark on Route 9, in Tarrytown, just south of the Tappan Zee Bridge, has attracted 2,790 animals. The show is dedicated to Peter Knoop, the Westchester club's president for 12 years, who died on Aug. 26.

In one of those apparent cultural coincidences that are actually the result of broad intellectual currents that cross national boundaries at certain moments, the year 1898 saw both the founding of the Moscow Art Theater by Konstantin Stanislavsky and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, and Freud's starting to write ''The Interpretation of Dreams,'' the book that formed the foundation of all his future work. In the Tulane Drama Review some years ago, John J. Sullivan, a psychologist with an interest in the theater, argued that the starting of the MAT and Freud's book were responses and contributions to certain radically changed conditions of the European mind: a new consciousness of the self, especially of its interiority, and a new awareness of the relations between body and mind. On the basis of these intuitions, Freud embarked on a ''scientific'' revision of nearly all human self-knowledge; Stanislavsky's goals were more modest and circumscribed, but the results of his investigations in his chosen domain nevertheless proved to be far-reaching. A few months ago, Lee Strasberg died after a long reign as head of the Actors' Studio and an even longer one as Stanislavsky's chief interpreter (or, as some think, misinterpreter) in this country. With his death, an era has come to an end; so, this would seem to be a good time to ask some questions concerning the place of Stanislavsky in American theatrical practice, most centrally in the training of actors.

The Defense Department blocked the presentation of about 100 technical papers just before they were to have been delivered at an international convention on optical engineering held in San Diego late last month. The last-minute security crackdown, which received little notice at the time, appears to have been the most sweeping effort yet by the Reagan Administration to prevent the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive technical data that officials believe could be of military use to the Soviet Union or its allies. The abrupt nature of the action disturbed some top scientists and even other Government officials, with George A. Keyworth 2d, President Reagan's science adviser, calling the incident ''both unfortunate and ill-timed.'' The action disrupted the 26th annual international technical symposium of the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers by eliminating about one of every six papers scheduled to be presented.

FOR this season's evaluation of the 28 teams in the National F ootball League, last season's results are meaningless. Even the A merican Football Conference has no perennial powers any longer. Lasts eason's mediocre team could be this season's Super Bowl winner, or s imply another loser. And even the most sanguine fan of the C incinnati Bengals knows that if the quarterback Ken Anderson were i njured, the team could sink to the bottom. For better or for worse, parity has replaced powerhouses. In assessing the A.F.C., it is important not to be overly impressed with last season. Don't try to figure which team has the ''easiest'' schedule based on last season's won-lost records. The A.F.C. traditionally is the conference of the quarterback, of the long pass play, of instant gratification. This season, there will be a conservative trend. Even Jim Plunkett and Terry Bradshaw - the famed long passers of other seasons - are going to dump off quick, unexciting passes to their running backs.

Cubbyhole Co-ops A Bit of Charm at $35,000 and Up Even in Manhattan, where space is counted in inches, it would not be an exaggeration to call the 16 cooperative apartments at 34-36 Bethune Street in Greenwich Village pint-sized. The smallest measures 10 feet by 11 feet 9 inches and the largest is 13 feet 4 inches by 21 feet 1 inch. The measurements do not include the units' tiny bathrooms.