Watch: Meet Martha, the lazy, droopy Neapolitan Mastiff who was named the ‘World’s Ugliest Dog’
She plopped down for a nap while receiving her award.
Dog shows usually judge contestants on appearance and behaviour. This one, in contrast, rewards those dogs who are the farthest from being perfect.
The annual World’s Ugliest Dog Contest at Petulma, California, celebrates the inner beauty and imperfections that make dogs loveable and adoptable, and the winner this year is a lazy, gassy, gigantic Neapolitan Mastiff named Martha.
Martha, whose droopy cheeks almost reach her knees, is a three-year-old, 125-pound dog with special skills for snoring (so loudly that her handler has to keep her in a different room to sleep). Her wrinkly, excess skin spread across the stage as she plopped down in the middle of the show to take a nap, lathering the area with generous amounts of drool as she snored.
“The first time I saw her, I had to laugh,” Janet Palma, a Dogwood board member, told The New York Times at the Sonoma-Marin Fair, adding, “Her huge feet, the baggy skin on her legs, the floppy skin over her eyes. She’s just darling.”
Martha’s victory was a first at the 29th edition of the contest, which typically sees small, hairless, old dogs walk away with the $1,500, the flashy trophy and media appearances. The runner-up was Moe, a 16-year-old Brussels Griffon-pug mix, whose tongue perpetually sticks out of his mouth.
Many of the competing dogs are rescued or adopted, including Martha, who was nearly blind from neglect when she was rescued by Shirley Zindler, founder of the Dogwood Animal Rescue Project; after several surgeries, she is now healthy and can see again.
As reported by The New York Times, an announcer asked Zindler, “Does Martha know she’s that ugly?”
“No,” replied Zindler, “Martha thinks she’s beautiful. We tell her every day.”
