Vito the pug wins best in show at annual National Dog Show competition

Nationwide Canine Present contestants had been judged based mostly on total look, temperament and construction based on their breeds’ official requirements.

“Compact, options, motion — all the things a pug must be,” best-in-show choose George Milutinovich stated in a information launch. Vito was chosen over a top-ranked Welsh terrier, an enormous schnauzer, a Clumber spaniel, a Lhasa apso, a Berger Picard and an Ibizan hound.

“By no means seen him earlier than. Wow. Simply wow. A number of canine in a small package deal,” Milutinovich stated. “To take a look at a pug is to place a smile in your face.”

“I used to be optimistic,” Vito’s handler, Michael Scott of Chesapeake Metropolis, Maryland, stated in a launch. “I at all times hope to get a extremely good look [from the judge]. … Vito has an attractive head and expression. Nice define.”

Vito earned Koch and co-owners Pleasure Barbieri and Rebecca Movall of Stanfordville, New York, a $2,000 prize.

Reserve finest in present (second place) went to a Welsh terrier named Verde and handler Gabriel Rangel, of Rialto, California.

About 2,000 canines convened on the Better Philadelphia Expo Heart for this 12 months’s present, which has been held yearly since 1933, with its first incarnation happening in 1879.

The Nationwide Canine Present is an all-breed present run by the Kennel Membership of Philadelphia and licensed by the American Kennel Membership (AKC). Any AKC-registered canine can enter.