Cute and cuddly just won’t cut it for canine contestants at World’s Ugliest Dog Contest

With a lolling tongue, googly eyes and a head of spectacularly stringy gray-white hair, Jeneda Benally’s Chihuahua-mix pooch would probably strike anyone as an excellent contender for the world’s ugliest dog. On a hot day in Petaluma on Friday, it became official.

The inaptly named “Mr. Happy Face” triumphed over nine other scrawny, goofy, scruffy competitors at the World’s Ugliest Dog Contest at the Sonoma-Marin Fair in Petaluma. The annual contest has been held for nearly 50 years, and returned from two years of COVID-19 hiatus just in time to provide some comic relief to developments including the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.