Beagle Man sent around a family text earlier this week with a link to a New York Times article. It was called “Remembering the One and Only Uno” (Richard Sandomir). Well, I sure do. Remember him, that is. Uno was one of my idols. He was the first Beagle to ever win Best in Show at Westminster, the Big Cahuna of all dog shows — and as you probably gathered, he passed away last week. The piece mentioned that his big win came back in 2008. Matt texted to all of us, “I CANNOT believe that was 10 years ago!” — and I couldn’t agree more. Time flies.
Here’s a little part of the article:
. . . The next night, Uno was one of seven group winners vying for Best in Show,
entering the Garden’s green-carpeted floor to a thunderous applause that confirmed his star power. He was now the favorite son in love with the bright lights and the roar of the crowd. Elevating his popularity was that the beagle was a breed familiar to millions. And after baying his way into the heart of the judge, Dr. J. Donald Jones, Uno won the title . . . “He’s the most perfect beagle I’ve ever seen,” Jones said.
That night was a pretty big deal in our household, too. At the time, I was just a super-rambunctious 5-year-old, and our whole family was Beagle-crazy. The B-Man wrote a column about the evening in the Westport News — mostly about what I was doing during Uno’s triumph:
. . . My whole family was watching on the TV in the den as the climactic moment approached. And when the judge . . . did his last once-over of the seven finalists, and said, “May I have the beagle?”, we all jumped off the couch in unison, applauding wildly. But where was Ricky? Wouldn’t he have wanted to see a member of his own tribe being coronated? We called him — but of course he didn’t come. We looked in all his regular hideouts. No Ricky. Finally my wife found him, upstairs in the master bedroom. The painters, who had been working on that room earlier in the day, had left behind a styrofoam container from their lunch. While his beagle brother was being crowned Best in Show at the most prestigious canine event in America, Ricky was feverishly inhaling every last whiff of turkey with Russian. And he wore, of course, a fresh new coat of white paint he’d picked up from the wet trim on the closet door.
Ah, yes, I always did love me some food. No matter where it was hidden, I could snoop it out. Anyhoo . . . R.I.P., Uno. There’s plenty of good stuff to sniff up here. And I look forward to spending some time with another quality Beagle.
The Roof Rack Report used to appear regularly on Mondays. Now it appears once in a blue moon, when Beagle Man deigns to give me some space . . .
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