February is one of the least interesting months of the year, it ranks right up there with November but without the sexy lure of the food coma inducing day we like to call Thanksgiving and the four-day weekend most of us get to go along with it. In fact, February is a frightful bore which I why I think all the big award shows tend to happen then. The BAFTAs, the Grammys, the Academy Awards (where not one but TWO gingers came away with the top acting nods): Julianne “I used to never wear clothes in any of my roles” Moore and Eddie “I went to high school with an actual Prince “ Redmayne proved that playing a person with an affliction (Moore), or even better a REAL person with an affliction (Redmayne) is the surest route to Oscar gold. You would think Leonardo DiCaprio would have figured this out by now, oh wait, he has, never mind.
Without a doubt though, the very best, most wondrous award show of them all in February is the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, a show so over the top spectacular that it takes two nights and even more hairspray and bump-its than all fifty Miss USA contestants and Donald Trump could use put together to crown a winner.
Does this dog look white and gold to you?
Thanks to Christopher Guest’s entirely spot on mockumentary Best In Show, Westminster has become not only appointment television in my house, but is now on my bucket list to someday attend this celebration of canine haute couture-ness except I can think of about ten other places I would rather be in February than New York City (like anyplace with a beach and a temperature over 80 for example), but the clock is ticking so I should probably just get over it since I am not getting any younger no matter how many magazine articles tell me (insert age here) is the new thirty, it isn’t.
Where else but a dog show could a man like Blue from Old School and Stifler’s Mom from American Pie find marital happiness over their mutual love of soup and standard poodles?
You might not think six hours of dogs strutting their stuff on the green carpet could be that entertaining but it is. We laugh at the weird-ass looking ones, especially the Pulis and the Bedlington terriers (a breed so homely I can’t even imagine a mother could love), snicker at the “alleged” working dogs (like strutting around the pageant circuit is a real JOB, slackers), admire the poodles with their complicated haircuts and take it just a little bit too personally when our favorites don’t win their respective groups.
Okay, so there are a couple of dogs that work, I just don’t know any of them.
Westminster is the canine equivalent of Miss America, only with dudes, and just like in real life the dudes usually win, although this year a totally on point lady beagle named Miss P pulled off an upset win over a sheepdog named Swagger (think Guy Fieri in dog form) who clearly thought he had the trophy in the bag. Typical. However Miss P thought otherwise and used all her cute feminine beagle wiles to win over the judge, who by the way really was a judge, like the kind who sentences people to death or serve lengthy prison terms or sometimes both because we live in America and the criminal justice system is pretty jacked.
Sadly we can’t expect to see Miss P compete ever again as she has decided to retire from the pageant circuit to have children, lots of children, most likely in a shameless attempt to get some sort of a reality show on TLC ala the 19 kids* and counting people only Miss P can pop out that amount of puppies in a couple of years, three max, and will not have to be married to someone named JIM BOB, and wear Little House on the Prairie style dresses to do so. After that, we will start to see Miss P’s offspring in the tabloids, hanging out in clubs with unsavory characters like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan’s pups and posting snaps of their decadent lifestyles on the Rich Dogs of Instagram like the little dog one fur-centers they will inevitably become.
All I know is Amber Atkins would never give up her career so easily, not even after her trailer was blown to smithereens. She and her mother worked too hard to get there.
*not that I needed any proof, but these people really are assholes.
Oh-Amy.com 