Beauty and the beagle: Canadians beaming after dog’s Westminster win

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The Mayor of Enderby is joking when he says his small B.C. town should be renamed Enderbeagle to honour a local dog's stunning win at the famed Westminster Kennel Club show in New York.

But Miss P's upset win, overcoming 15-1 odds on the Las Vegas betting line to become Best in Show at the world's most renowned dog competition, needs to be recognized somehow, Greg McCune said Wednesday.

"It's absolutely amazing," he said of the title, which is only the sixth time in the 139-year history of the show the top prize has gone to a Canadian dog. "Our first thought is we have a Canada Day parade and an invitation will go out to Miss P to lead that parade … and there have been suggestions about having a Miss P Day."

Bev Davies-Fraser, past president of the Beagle Club of Western Canada, said the excitement is understandable because Miss P has just won the most prestigious prize in the dog world.

"It's like winning the Super Bowl," she said. "To have a Canadian dog do it, handled by a Canadian handler … it's amazing."

The four-year-old beagle was bred at Tashtin Kennel in Enderby, which has a population of about 3,000.

The dog is owned by Lori and Kaitlyn Crandlemire, who live in the small town in B.C.'s North Okanagan Valley, and by American Eddie Dziuk. The handler, Will Alexander, from Ontario, has been on the road with the dog for much of the past two years, racking up a steady stream of regional dog show awards in Canada and the United States.

Thora Brown, past president of the Canadian Dog Judges Association, said Miss P is a near-perfect specimen that displayed a special star quality when she trotted into the show ring in Madison Square Garden Tuesday night, up against the top dogs in the world.

"The lineup was spectacular," said Ms. Brown, who over the years has judged many of the finalists.

Although the betting line had other dogs winning, she said it was Miss P's undefinable star quality that put her out in front.

"In any show you may go in thinking it's a sure bet for the poodle or whatever, but when you get in there on that night something in the ring takes on that extra quality, that extra showmanship and says, 'No, no, no, look at me,' " Ms. Brown said.

"That is … a dog who owns the ring they stand in and says, 'Come get me boys, I'm the best thing here.' "

In addition to that magnetism, she said, Miss P also has all the other physical qualities a champion must display.

"For every breed there is a written standard, which describes the ideal of the dog in architectural terms if you like. It's the shape of the eye, the placement of the ear, the length of muzzle in relation to the skull … you name it, all the parts," she said.

She said judges ask the handlers to run the dogs so they can see how they move, looking for signs that a dog is graceful, strong and could do what it was originally bred for.

"All dogs were meant to do something, not just be sweet, loving house pets," Ms. Brown said. "And so in the case of the beagle it was meant to be a pack hound, a hunter. It was meant to go out for half a day, so that the owner could find dinner and the family could eat. When you watch him go you have to be able to say, 'I could ride my horse behind that dog and I'd have dinner on the table tonight.' "

Marion Postgate, a veteran dog judge and trainer in Vancouver, said it is hard to overstate the magnitude of winning Best in Show at Westminster. "It means you are the best of the best," she said, noting that about 3,000 dogs are entered in the competition.

Miss P's owners couldn't be reached for comment, but before the show they said their dog, the grandniece of Uno, which in 2008 was the first beagle ever to win at Westminster, would retire to become a breeder.