Who Won This Year's World's Ugliest Dog Contest?

Every summer for 22 years, packs of ugly dogs (and the owners who adore them) compete for the coveted title of World's Ugliest Dog®. They come sporting hairless bodies, buck teeth or toothless grins, tufts of "Einstein Hair" in all the wrong places, tongues that loll outside their mouths, and other physical attributes that most people find unappealing. But on one special day of the year, ugly is the new beautiful. So who was the homeliest of them all at the 2010 World's Ugliest Dog Contest, held at the Sonoma-Marin Fair in Petaluma, California? Read on!

This year's World's Ugliest Dog is Princess Abby, a rescue dog from Clear Lake, California. Princess Abby is a 4-year-old Chihuahua that, at first glance, doesn't seem nearly as ugly as some of the other canine contenders. But take a closer look and you'll see that this year's World's Ugliest Dog definitely deserves her title. Princess Abby has an oddly curved back and her front legs are shorter than her back legs, which gives her a peculiar hunched walk. She also has a missing eye, and the crowd-pleasing ability to dance on her two hind feet.

Princess Abby beat out 14 other "beauty-challenged" canines in the Pedigree Class before going up against the winner of the mutt division, a Terrier mix named Chopper. Comic Jon Reep, this year's emcee, joked that Chopper was so hairy that if he were dropped in the gulf, he'd absorb all of the oil himself. Hair aside, Chopper's unique brand of ugly was no match for Princess Abby, and she was crowed the Queen of Ugly before a packed crowd of onlookers and ugly dog lovers.

In addition to a $1,000 check, the World's Ugliest Dog gets a trophy and an assortment of doggie bling (collars, leashes, bowls and toys), a professional photo shoot and a modeling contract with House of Dog. That's all well and good, but the Ugly title will be life changing for Princess Abby. Thanks to the popularity of this internationally acclaimed contest, winners of the World's Ugliest Dog Contest enjoy worldwide fame, complete with talk show appearances, videos and glossy magazine write-ups!

Five months earlier, Princess Abby's life was not nearly so rosy. The Humane Society in Clear Lake found the malnourished, flea-infested Chihuahua wandering the streets, cold and lonely. Back at the shelter, it was love at first sight for Kathleen Francis, who promptly adopted the little dog and christened her Princess Abby. "She's my best friend. Abby's done more for me than I've done for her. I don't think she's ugly at all," said Francis.

In addition to emcee Jon Reep, the 2010 World's Ugliest Dog Contest judges were: celebrity vet Karen "Doc" Halligan, HawthoRNe television star Christina Moore and Vertical Horizon lead singer Matt Scannell.

This year, like every other year for 22straight years, there was no shortage of ugly at the Sonoma-Marin Fair's World's Ugliest Dog contest. To the outside world, the ugly dogs might seem hard to love. But to their human companions, they are beautiful beings cherished for their personalities and the joy their presence brings. For when it comes to dogs and love, it really is true: beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

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http://www.sonoma-marinfair.org/uglydogcontest.shtml