Meet the 2024 Winner of the ‘World’s Ugliest Dog’ Contest – Notice Important Online

For Pekingese Wild Thang, and his someone Ann Lewis, success the denomination of “World’s Ugliest Dog” is not an hurt but an honor.

The younker hailing from Coos Bay, Oregon, is the 2024 succeeder of the period World’s Ugliest Dog competition, which took locate on Friday, June 21, at the Sonoma-Marin Fair in Petaluma, California.

According to the contest’s website, the event—which has been streaming since 1988—is “not most making recreation of ‘ugly’ dogs, but having recreation with whatever wonderful characters and display the concern that these dogs are rattling beautiful.”

The 8-year older dog, whose ness perpetually hangs discover of his mouth, went bag with a $5,000 analyse and a activate to New royalty City, which is ordered to be featured on NBC’s Today show on Monday, June 24. A assemblage ago, Wild Thang was featured shortly on Today, as criminal up to the 2023 oppose winner,  17-year-old chihuahua intermixture Mr. Happy Face, whose someone showed up to the birdlike diminution and asked for the “most unadoptable dog.”

Now, Wild Thang has eventually entered the spotlight.

The get was a daylong instance reaching for the pup, who has competed in the rivalry fivesome times, and has been runner-up the terminal threesome years. According to digit of the judges, Fiona Ma, it was this continuation that helped near Wild Thang over the bounds and crossways the initiate to prototypal place.

“The fact that he was the attender and never the bride, I conceive rattling tugged at our heartstrings,” Ma, California’s 34th State Treasurer, said in an interview with the Associated Press after the event. “He merited to win.”

She went on to particular digit of the field purposes of the show, which is to exponent for rescuing and adopting pets, kinda than acquire them. Most of the contestants every assemblage are diminution dogs, or grew up on the streets.

The 2024 runner-up denomination went to prototypal instance entree, 14-year older canid Rome, who walks with an bespoken wheelchair on his posterior legs. leaders spends his instance temporary hospice patients and educating children most the grandness of adopting grownup delivery pets. He was also a member of the 2023 Wheeling Pug Relay team, which raises money to acquire wheelchairs for differently-abled dogs. Owner Michelle Grady was unbelievably agog with their placement.

“To get ordinal locate discover of everyone here is a actual honor,” she said, in an discourse with The Star News. “I fuck this full contest, and that it celebrates dogs that are dead imperfect.”

Though Wild Thang won the authorised prize—based on a judges commission that included Ma, NBC News Correspondent Gadi Schwartz, and others—runner-up leaders took bag the “People’s Choice” award, which audience could balloting for preceding to the oppose on weekday via the contest’s website.

Other contestants included 14-year-old Daisy Mae, who was saved from the streets at the protective geezerhood of 2, chihuahua intermixture Cadence II, who weighs a powerful fivesome pounds and has nearly no set left, and Freddy Mercury, a 14-year older Brussels-Griffon/Pug intermixture who was adoptive from the streets and is today the mascot for Petaluma’s topical cover toiletries truck.