FetchDog sniffs out Uno the Beagle 2008's Westminster Kennel Club winner


Posted on Feb 13, 2008
By Julia Szabo

He smells like a 15-inch Beagle and he looks like one too. A very fetching Beagle, at that. Millions of viewers watching the finals of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show last night on USA Network were rooting for Uno, a.k.a. Ch. K-Run's Park Me in First.

That's precisely what Best in Show Judge J. Donald Jones did: park Uno in first. Nomen est omen, goes the Latin saying: In name is destiny. Uno was indeed number one. As reported by Associated Press, Jones said, "He's perfect, he was a 10. He does cuteness well."

As a breed, the Beagle had never once won Westminster before, and the last time a Beagle won the Hound group, FDR was President (the year was 1939), so Uno entered this competition as an underdog. Coincidentally, Underdog, last year's live-action Disney movie based on the 1960s-era Hanna Barbera cartoon starred a Beagle as the canine caped crusader.

But Uno's personality would change the course of canine history. He was the crowd favorite and he seemed to know it, riding that wave of popular support as only a Beagle can: baying and barking all the way. When Uno was named Best in Show, beating out 2,626 other entries, the audience rose to its feet, cheering and chanting his name. As Snoopy, that other famous all-American Beagle, might say, "Cowabunga!"

Here's what Westminster co-host David Frei says: "We've never had a reaction like this at the Garden."

Uno started this, his first day of life as "America's Dog," with appearances on major national TV morning shows. Later today, he'll scarf a luxe lunch at legendary celebrity watering hole Sardi's, which bends New York City's notorious no-dogs-in-restaurants rule each year by serving the Westminster winner sirloin on a silver platter.

But while Uno basks in his well-deserved glory and looks forward to a year of solid swag, let's take a moment to remember that, as popular as Beagles are, there are still thousands of less-fortunate underdog Beagles, Uno's close cousins, that need our help as they await adoption from shelters and rescue groups.

Read about one of Uno's pretty cousins, a sweet Beagle named Bea who escaped a life as a laboratory animal and inspired a book, right here on FetchDog. 
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