It’s Beijing, and its name is Wasabi: Tonight’s fur ball won Sunday through Monday at the “Westminster Dog Show,” the popular dog beauty pageant that was moved this year, due to the pandemic, in the setting of the rural town of Tarrytown, north of New York.
The competition is usually held in February at Madison Square Garden. But for this 145th edition—the oldest annual meeting in the American calendar, after the Kentucky Derby—the calendar had to be moved, banning the usual masses of spectators.
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The three-year-old Wasabi was crowned among seven finalists including Bourbon, Wutet, Matthew, French Bulldog, Connor, English Shepherd, Stryker, Samoyed, or Boy, a West Highland white terrier.
For its owner and breeder, David Fitzpatrick – who actually won the prestigious award in 2012 with his latest bikini, My Angel – wasabi combines “charisma, a sense of movement, and a look”.
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“He’s at his best and he’s amazing,” the breeder smiled after winning Good Morning America.
He added that Wasabi will retire soon, although he “loves competitions and has a great personality.”
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The competition is for purebred dogs: this year it brought together over 2,000 competitors from over 200 different breeds, of all sizes, hairs, and shapes.
They are judged not only on the basis of their behavior, or status, but also on the adequacy of their reactions to certain situations, according to whether they express the vigilance or joy necessary in certain circumstances.
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