Doggone it

If you have seen the great Christopher Guest movie "Best In Show," about the dogged competition among people who enter their dogs (and by extension, themselves) in dog shows, then you know how seriously some people take this stuff. And then there are those of us who think that dogs should be named "Rover," "Fido," or "Buster" instead of "Woodwynd’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotted Mind," aka "Shiner," for example. Or "Mi-Toi’s Burberry At Justincredible." Both of these last are real names that real people have given to real dogs for no real good reason.  The dogs will tell you, they'd rather be called "Timmy" and be allowed to sit around the house gnawing on slippers (with or without your feet in them) than to be made up like Mrs Astor's plush horse and prance around Madison Square Garden on nights when hockey is not being played.

But, people spend an arm and a leg on these critters, and they are entitled to name them as they wish. 

It's no rumor that Bruce Willis's daughter, Rumer, won Dancing With The Stars a couple of years ago, dancing her way into America's hearts by clodhopping her way through Adele's hit song "Rumor Has It."

And then a dog was born and named after that high point in our culture.  And last year, that dog came in second place in the Westminster Kennel Club Dog and Pony Show in New York.

Looks like any other K-9 to me

But rumors have a way of coming back around, and guess what! That plucky German Shepherd took a few months off to brood over her loss to C.J., a German shorthaired pointer.  

And this year, Rumor Has It had it, and won the whole deal!  And now, with the prize firmly in paw, she is retiring and planning a family.

Her handler and co-owner Kent Boyles had had the pooch hanging around his house in Wisconsin before one of them talked the other into entering her in this competition this year, but now, "This is her official retirement day," says Boyles. "She can’t accomplish any more than she has already accomplished. This is definitely the ultimate type of win for her, so it’s pretty awesome. Unfortunately for her, she likes to show, so she’d like to come back," he added. "But this is it. This is it for sure."

RHI will retire as the one and only mongrel to win the coveted green food bowl at Westminster while being named for a hit pop song, since "Hound Dog" and "Who Let The Dogs Out" failed to take home the prize.  

But they did bring in the newspaper.