This Dog Is a Star

Look, there are a lot of reasons to not “get” dog shows. Why spend thousands of dollars on a hairstylist to put a Yorkie in sponge curlers for five hours so that some blowhard in a tuxedo can come and praise genetic traits that humans have arbitrarily imposed on a perfectly good wolf?

The reason is this: Because every so often, a dog comes along that just has it. And my friends, GCHP Stone Run Afternoon Tea, the newly crowned Best In Show at Westminster Dog Show, has all of it, every fucking bit. From the cottony bouffant to the curtain tassel ears to the way she finds her correct light and hits her angles in every single photo.

It’s not just that Sunday Tea, or Siba, to her friends and booking agent, is a perfect Baroque drawing room of a dog, which she is. It’s that she knows it, owns it, and is at all times actively using it, sopping up every bit of attention in a room and calmly radiating it back with neatly crossed paws and perfect tilt of the snout. Sorry to all other dogs, but look at this dog.

The prizes are fine, but the real award is just being born Siba, a star.