ORDER OF EVENTS
Best in Show, September 1999
Ring 1: Dogs
Ring 2: Cats
Ring 3: Small, Scaly and Feathered
The Judging Standards
How to Nominate
Past Winners, January through September

ABOUT THE JUDGE
I put in thirty years with the fire department here in Buffalo and retired in 1996. When I retired, my wife Shirley said I could have a hobby or I could have a list of chores, and she had the list already written. So I've got a hobby.

The household: three beagles, Chief (12), Ladder (8) and Dottie (5), and a parakeet named Sal who has an opinion about everything and shares it starting at six in the morning. Chief came from a litter a fellow at the firehouse couldn't place. Ladder and Dottie came from the shelter. Sal came from the pet store at the mall and has never let us forget it.

Since January of this year I've picked one GeoCities.us pet page a month and named it Best in Show. I'm not a vet and I'm not a real dog show judge. I've just loved animals my whole life, and I've seen what a bad owner looks like, on the job, more times than I'd like to remember. So when I find a page where somebody really knows their animal and takes good care of it, I like to say so out loud. The picks go up around the middle of every month.

Walking the Dog, Losing the Weight
by Bill Hartman and Charlie (4, beagle)

A year ago this month, Bill's daughter went off to college and left her beagle with her folks, "just until I get settled." Anybody who's had a beagle knows the rest. The nose must be walked. So Bill, who by his own account sat at a desk all day and on the couch all night, started walking Charlie twice a day, once before work and once after supper. Not for his health. For the recliner. Twelve months later he's forty pounds lighter, and his doctor told him to "keep doing whatever the dog says."

Now, this isn't a pet page in the usual way. It's over in HotSprings, and most of it is about Bill: a month-by-month table of his weight, his walking routes, what he changed at the supper table, and an honest section on setbacks, including his mother-in-law's fudge. But Charlie is all over every part of it. Bill measures the routes with the car odometer; Charlie measures them in mailboxes. When Bill was ready to quit last January, it was Charlie standing at the door at 6:15 in the morning that got him back out. And then there's "Charlie's Side of It," the dog's own account of the year, which Bill's wife calls silly. She's right, and it's the best thing on the page.

A word about the judge's beagles. Yes, Charlie is a beagle. Yes, I have three. Sal says I'm biased. Sal is right about a lot of things, but not this one. This page would have won if Charlie were a poodle. It just wouldn't have made me laugh as hard.

RING 1: DOGS
Honorable mentions

All About Me (by Rufus)
A basset hound in Kansas City, typing his autobiography with the help of his human, Marty, because he doesn't have thumbs. Rufus lists his hobbies (smells, all of them), his enemies (the mailman, who comes every day, and the vacuum, which eats his hair), and the high point of every day, which is dinner at 5:30. He starts waiting at 3:00. I laughed out loud, and so did Shirley, and so, I think, did Sal.
Judge's note: Rufus weighs 62 pounds. Marty's own note at the bottom says Rufus has figured out how to open the bottom cupboard. Marty, get a latch. A basset's back can't carry the extra.

The Dog Park Regulars
Sam Dodds and Biscuit write up the 7 a.m. crowd at the neighborhood dog run in Los Angeles: who's who, whose dog is whose, and the unofficial rules, which got taped to the gate. Rule one is "Pick up. Every time. Right away," and if every dog park in America taped up just that one, I'd die happy. Biscuit came from the shelter as a "beagle mix," which one of the regulars says means "mostly ears."
Judge's note: A shelter dog, a page full of other people's dogs, and rules that are all about being a good neighbor. Points across the board.

RING 2: CATS
Honorable mention

Katie's Kitty Korner
Katie is ten, and her cat Sprinkles is white with gray spots, one gray ear and one white one. Sprinkles likes Katie's pillow, the crunchy food (not the can kind) and boxes. When the family got a new VCR, she liked the box more than they liked the VCR. Katie wrote every word herself, and there's a picture of Sprinkles coming as soon as the film is back from the drugstore.
Judge's note: Sprinkles waits by the door when the school bus comes. Katie's mom says she hears the bus. Katie thinks she just knows. The judge sides with Katie.

Ring 2 was thin this month. The PudgeCam and Mr. Whiskers have already taken Best in Show this year, so somebody else has to step up. Cat people, I know you're out there. Send me something.

RING 3: SMALL, SCALY AND FEATHERED
Honorable mentions

Backyard Chickens in the Suburbs
Nancy Ferguson grew up on a farm and missed chickens for thirty years. This spring she finally read her city's code instead of assuming, found out her town allows up to six hens on a house lot (hens, not roosters), and came home from the feed store with a box that peeped. Six hens, two each of three breeds, a coop her husband built from leftover deck lumber, and an egg log.
Judge's note: She checked the law first. Do you know how rare that is? I spent thirty years meeting people who didn't.

The Reef Tank Page
Brian G. started a 55-gallon saltwater reef tank in January after four months of reading, and he calls himself a careful beginner who writes things down. He writes down everything: the setup, the water tests with real numbers, the six-week cycle, what it cost, and a section of his own mistakes that he asks you to read first.
Judge's note: A man who puts his mistakes up front where you'll see them is a man I'd trust with my fish. Or my hose line.

My REAL Hamsters!
Kelsey, 13, has a whole page of dancing cartoon hamsters, but this is the page about her real ones: Peanut Butter, a long-haired golden Syrian who stuffs his cheeks till his head is twice as big, and Pickles, a Winter White dwarf hamster about the size of a walnut. She explains why they live in separate cages (grown-up Syrians want to live alone, and they'll fight) and finishes with her hamster tips.
Judge's note: Good, sound advice from a thirteen-year-old, including "wash your hands before and after you hold them." Some grown-ups could stand to read it.

Sal would like it known that he expected a parakeet page in Ring 3. Sal, there wasn't one. Sal bit me.

THE JUDGING STANDARDS

1. The animal's personality comes through. I want to finish your page knowing your animal: what it's scared of, what it steals, where it sleeps, what it does at 5:29 in the evening. A list of breed facts copied out of a book doesn't count.

2. The care advice is sound. If you give advice, it had better be right. If you're not sure, say "ask your vet." Better no advice than wrong advice.

3. No puppies for sale. Or kittens, or anything else. If there's a litter for sale on the page, it isn't eligible, no matter how cute. This isn't a classified ad.

4. Adoption encouraged. Shelter animals, rescue groups and fosters get extra points from this judge, every time. Two of my three beagles came from the shelter, and they're the two who are smart enough to open the back door.

5. A page that loads. I'm on a 56K modem, like most people. If I've finished my coffee and your page hasn't finished coming up, it's out of the ring.

GeoCities.us pages only, and they have to be about your own animals.

HOW TO NOMINATE

E-mail me at [email protected]. Tell me the address of the page, the names of the animals, and one sentence about why it should win. You can nominate your own page; most people do, and there's no shame in it. Nominations for a month close on the 10th.

About the trophy. There's no award picture to take home. I can't draw, and I won't have your page loading a picture off mine. If you win and you'd like to say so on your page, copy these lines:

<a href="/Petsburgh/Yard/2136/">Best
in Show, Benny's Pet Page of the
Month, September 1999</a>

Change the month to yours. That's it. The honor's in the words.

See every winner, January through September