The Beagle Wins! The Beagle Wins!

Oh, yes! Despite my doom and gloom prediction yesterday, the judge sided with the (extremely loud!) crowd and Uno the Beagle is your Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show Champion! This makes him the President of Dogs, I think, just like Miss America is the President of Women.

Uno beat out a couple other solid dogs in the final, including a poodle that has won something like 750,000 Best in Shows. (There was also a pretty cute Akita who was my second choice. The Weimaraner also ran more graceful than any animal I’ve ever seen.) Uno howled after his victory and celebrated as if he knew he had won; the crowd went bananas. You think the Knicks fired Isiah the Garden was so loud.

The longtime announcer for the dog show on USA, David Frei, told the Associated Press this is going to be the most popular dog show champion in a while. (And 2006 champ Rufus the Colored Bull Terrier made two appearances at the Kennel Club of Philadelphia’s show last year.) “If he wins best in show, I’ll rent him an apartment in New York City because I’ll be traveling with him all year, so many people will want to see him,” Frei said. “If he won, it would be the greatest thing for our show.”

Ooh, do I sense some sort of mainstreaming of Westminster? Will angry poodle owners stage a protest? Whatever. The cute beagle won. Yay!

By the way, until Uno won the best line of the night was the judge for the Working Group, who the camera picked up saying, “Move that bitch up.” This needs to be in a dance remix, STAT.

Update: Aww, and look at this photo!

Hail, Snoopy! Beagle Wins Westminster [AP/Google]
Yesterday: Cute Doggies Take Over Dog Show

Philadelphia Will Do Goes To The Dogs

As you may know, I have a thing for puppies. This extends to dogs as well, and so the Westminster Kennel Club dog show is always a favorite of mine. Cute dogs, Bill Cosby, predictions of doom and so forth.

I wasn’t able to attend Westminster due to laziness issues, but Philadelphia Will Do Bucks County correspondent Christina Palsky was there, and filed the excellent report after the jump.

More »

Rich Old Man Owns Dog

While the Super Bowl was like two weeks ago or something, the Super Bowl of dog shows didn’t start until last night. Yes, Westminster, the annual doggy show held at Madison Square Garden every year, has begun again.

The dog show is always a good time even though the ugly dogs seem to win most of the time. But there are still enough cute ones to make it enjoyable to watch. And, journalism wise, it’s always pretty funny, because there’s always a few captions like the one on this photo: “P.J. a Beagle from Spring, Texas looks for a spot to relieve himself backstage prior to competing in the 131st Westminster dog show[.]”

This year, though, there is another sidestory: Harry, the winner of the terrier group, is a Dandie Dinmont Terrier owned by none other than Bill Cosby (inset). The little poodle-like terrier or whatever was so good no other Dandie Dinmonts even bothered to show up to face him in the breed, and he cruised to a Best in Group win last night. (The finals are tonight.)

But look how excited everyone is!

“Where’s the Dundee? The Dandie, or whatever you call him,” asked a lady sporting a huge diamond ring.

The dog show continues tonight. Aww.

Bill Cosby’s dog: Westminster’s wild about Harry [AP/CNN.com]
[Photo of Harry via Reuters]