Chihuahua-mix named Mr. Happy Face won the World's Ugliest Dog contest of 2022

• Image Credit: Internet

• Jun 29, 2022 | Poonam Nath

Jeneda Benally reacts to the news that her dog, Mr. Happy Face, has won the World's Ugliest Dog Competition.

Digital Desk: A Chihuahua mix named Mr. Happy Face emerged on Friday as the foulest of all the dogs, winning the 2022 World's Ugliest Dog contest. 

Mr. Happy Face was described as a dog with a "hairy genotype" with no teeth and a "dodgy face," a creature that resembled "a hyena or mandrill baboon," and a dog with a "chimp head."

Mr. Happy Face, who once lived in abusive and neglectful conditions with a hoarder, has tumors and neurological issues. He needs a diaper, struggles to stand or walk upright, and manages to hold his head misaligned.

Here are some pictures of Mr. Happy Face: 

Nonetheless, he has reached the age of about 17, has a natural mohawk, and when he is happy, he makes a sound "like a Dodge Ram diesel truck" clunking its engine, stated an online biography.

"It was clear and obvious Mr. Happy Face deserved to be champion," one of the contest's judges, Debra Mathy, said on Saturday, adding that the judges didn't even bother debating who should win. "It's incredible what this dog has overcome physically and in his previous life."

Jeneda Benally, the dog's owner, won $1,500 and a trip to New York City to appear on the "Today" show.

The contest promotes dog adoption, even if the dog has "missing fur, crossed eyes, duck waddles, or mismatched ears." Eight dogs walked the red carpet at the event, which has been held for nearly 50 years during the Sonoma-Marin Fair in Petaluma, California. It resumed on Friday after being halted in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic.

"They're promoting dog rescue, that all dogs, regardless of appearance, deserve to be loved," Mathy explained.

"The shelter staff tried to prepare me for what I was about to see," Benally wrote on the contest website when she adopted Mr. Happy Face from an Arizona shelter; Happy Face was rescued from a hoarder's house. Mr. Happy Face had been at the shelter for "quite some time," and a veterinarian estimated he only had a few weeks to live, if not a month.

"I vowed that day that he would be so loved that he would forget how horrible his previous life had been," Benally wrote. Mr. Happy Face has already reached the age of ten months in his new home.

Wild Thang, a distemper survivor with a perpetually protruding tongue, came in second place and received a $1,000 prize.

Mathy described Wild Thang as an "adorable mess," adding that the dog "looked like 50 pounds but only weighed 6 pounds because it was all fur."

Scamp the Tramp, "a dog of unknown breeding with beady eyes, no teeth, and short stubby legs," won the 2019 contest, as did Martha, a Neapolitan mastiff with "droopy red eyes, uncontrollable drool, and baggy skin," in 2017.

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