World's Ugliest Dog Contest
The World’s Ugliest Dog Contest is an annual contest held in Petaluma, California, as part of the Sonoma-Marin Fair, to decide which of the dogs entered in the contest is the ugliest. The contest, along with the rest of the fair, is typically scheduled for the fourth week of June. Along with the title of “The World’s Ugliest Dog”, the winner’s owner receives a check for $1,000 and a year's supply of dog biscuits, and both dog and owner receive significant publicity for winning the contest, appearing on talk shows and in newspapers around the world.
Animal Planet has sponsored the event and broadcast the show on television for several years. In the 2009 contest, the event included celebrity judges such as Jon Provost ("Timmy" on the 1950s television show Lassie) as well as an Ugly is the New Beautiful Fashion Show featuring models and adoptable rescue dogs. Dog owners must provide documentation of veterinarian checks to determine the competing animal is healthy. The Sonoma-Marin Fair has also partnered with animal rights groups such as the Sonoma County Humane Society to educate the public about animals and to provide opportunities to adopt rescue dogs. The fair issues a photo of the winner, press release summing up the contest, and YouTube video within hours of the contest conclusion. These can be viewed at . Contestants for each new year are featured on the website before the contest as well in the World's Ugliest Dog Voting Gallery.
Dogs come from across the United States generally but are welcome to enter from around the world. In contrast to conformation shows (which are restricted to purebreds), mutts are allowed to participate. The 2002 winner and now a “Ring of Champions” holder is Rascal, owned by actor Dane Andrew of Sunnyvale, California. The winner of the 2007 World’s Ugliest Dog was Elwood, a Chinese Crested-Chihuahua mixed-breed dog owned by Karen Quigley, a resident of Sewell, New Jersey. 2008’s winner was also a Chinese Crested, Jeanenne Teed’s hairless, three-legged, one-eyed Gus. The 2009 winner was Pabst, a boxer mix owned by Miles Egstad of Citrus Heights, California who ended the seven-year reign held by the Chinese Crested breed. Pabst also won a year-long modeling contract from sponsor House of Dog in addition to dog bling.
The contest has been going on since the 1970s. In 2009 the Sonoma-Marin Fair trademarked the phrase World's Ugliest Dog.
The contest was the subject of an hour-long indie documentary entitled "Worst in Show", produced by Don Lewis and John Beck.
Read more about World's Ugliest Dog Contest: 2000 and 2001, 2002, 2003-2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012
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“O, I have passed a miserable night,
So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,
That, as I am a Christian faithful man,
I would not spend another such a night
Though ‘twere to buy a world of happy days,
So full of dismal terror was the time.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse.... A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their own free choice—is often the means of their regeneration.”
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“The dog is mentioned in the Bible eighteen times—the cat not even once.”
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“The contest ends at midnight tonight
But you can submit again, and again.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)