Did you ever hear that old expression, “He’s got a face that only a mother could love?” Sometimes our furry little friends are only adorable to us. No matter what our dogs look like, we love those sweet little critters. Because we love our dogs no matter what, a spoof of conformation dog shows was born in the form of The World’s Ugliest Dog Contest. The winner of each year’s contest wins $1,000.00. Let’s review a list of the winners to date:

A mutt named Nana was the winner of the first two contests in 2000 and 2001. Unfortunately, Nana passed away in 2001. Her owner described her breed as a “Canardly” meaning that you can hardly tell what type of dog she was.

The 2002 winner was a seven pound Chinese Crested dog named Rascal. The Chinese Crested has won 7 out of the 9 contests. They are small dogs, sometimes hairless, and originated from Africa. Racal went on to a film career in the movie Tele-Zombie where he played the lead as the killer zombie dog and is expected to perform in two other movies.

Sam, another Chinese Crested dog won The World’s Ugliest Dog Contest for the next three years in a row, from 2003 through 2005, but died in 2005 at age 14 due to heart failure. Sam was blind. He is unofficially considered the ugliest dog that ever lived and became very popular on the internet due to his unique look.

The 2006 Ugly Dog contest was a little complicated. The official winner was Archie after there was a problem where someone hacked into the voting system and stole 40,000 votes from one dog and 30,000 votes from another dog, so internet voting had to be restarted and Archie emerged victorious.

Elwood, a Chinese Crested Chihuahua mix won the 2007 contest, having placed second the year before. Archie had a Mohawk, bug eyes, and a long, wagging tongue.

In 2008 it was Gus’s turn to win, the first three-legged dog to win the contest. Poor Gus also had only one eye, having lost one eye in a fight with a cat. Gus was old and even had to use dog stairs to get on and off beds, sadly, he passed away later the same year at age 9.

Pabst, a boxer mix with a prominent under-bite, floppy ears, and a scrunched-up face won the 2009 contest. Pabst was rescued from a shelter in CA and is now four years old. The Chinese Crest breed had won most of the prior years’ contests, so this year marked a return of the mutt.

The Animal Planet Network now covers this annual event on television because it has become so popular. There are many other local ugly dog contests. Ugly, as you know, is in the eye of the beholder. Let’s look in the dog kennels at some of the dogs who weren’t ugly enough to win, but still pretty ugly!

Barracuda is said to having a flaming red flat top haircut and freckles everywhere and is a Chihuahua mix with more hair on his toes than on his tail, making his tail look rat-like. Buster is what they call a teacup Chihuahua whose owner says that when she takes it out in public, people think it’s a rat. Buster is actually a girl, all 1.5 pounds of her. She is hairless and only has seven teeth. Reggie is a mutt affectionately referred to as “Frankendog.” Need I say more? Grover looks a little bit like a Gargoyle. This five year old Chinese Pug is bug-eyed, wrinkled, has crooked teeth, snores, sneezes, and according to his owner, is kind of smelly.

No matter what our dogs look like, we love them all!