Nonetheless, Bugaboo's Picture Perfect, another Old English Sheepdog (he's just twenty months old), was hardly a favorite when the Johnsons entered him in this year's WKC. As noted by Show Dog author Josh Dean in an NPR interview available here, he'd only taken part in three competitions before the kennel club pageant and had never won a championship -- a deficit that would have previously prevented him for taking part in what is essentially the Super Bowl of dog breeding. However, new rules put in place this year allowed the entry of so-called "class" dogs like Swagger.
He made the most of his opportunity, taking the top prize in the herding category and then winning hearts and minds in the Best in Show contest.In the end, Swagger finished second to Banana Joe, an Affenpinscher -- a breed whose moniker translates, more or less, to "monkey face," which turns out to be a pretty apt description. Here's a look at him.
We would have gone with Swagger, if only because of his ballin' name (a big improvement over Bugaboo's Picture Perfect). But we're biased. Look below to see a WKC video of Swagger after topping the other herding dogs, followed by the NPR report.More from our News archive: "Mandatory life jackets for dogs in kennels? Colorado could be the first."