Continued: Uno proves it: Beagles are best

NEW YORK - Under this same famed ceiling, New York Knicks great Willis Reed 38 years ago walked injured into NBA Finals' Game 7 legend. Muhammad Ali first fought Joe Frazier here. Wayne Gretzky played his final game here.

On Tuesday night, Madison Square Garden patrons populated its lofty blue seats and clamored for a 15-inch, 24-pound bundle of competitive fire, indisputable self-assurance and, as with all great champion athletes, a certain sense of showmanship.

Soccer had Pelé. Golf has Tiger. The 132nd Westminster Kennel Club dog show -- a competition of four-legged excellence that pre-dates the light bulb and the automobile -- has Uno, who became the most notable of his breed since a comic-strip beagle smooched Lucy Van Pelt on the lips.

Uno, a regal resident of South Carolina who bays at judges presumably to get their attention and approval, became on Tuesday night the first beagle ever to win the dog world's most prestigious title, Best in Show at the Westminster dog show.

For two days every February this famous arena goes to the dogs in a sporting tradition that has come to mirror New York City itself.

Crowded and loud.

"These dogs, they're doing better than the Knickerbockers," a crusty Garden usher said of the city's struggling NBA franchise. "They're sitting people way up there tonight."

Dog lovers 'want to see it'

The prestigious New York Times prints Westminster dog-show "game" stories on its sports-section covers. A sellout crowd for the fourth consecutive year arrived Tuesday night for the crowning of the event's grand champion -- its "Best of Show" -- decided not by who runs fastest or jumps highest, but rather, in the opinion of a singular judge, which dog best exemplifies the American Kennel Club's standard for a breed's desired traits.

"If you love dogs and you've watched it on TV, you just want to see it," said Anoka's Doug Hildre, who showed his 5 1/2-year-old Bernese Mountain dog named Cash in his Westminster debut Tuesday morning in the working dogs group. "A lot of people want to be part of it, just once."

Primped with powder and mousse, spritzed and blow-dried, more than 2,600 dogs representing 169 different breeds as well as 48 states, including several from Minnesota, and six foreign countries are the stars of a parade that attracts spectators attired in tuxedos and evening gowns as well as sweat-shirted dog lovers displaying an image of their beloved Spinone Italiano (a muscular, wiry-coated hunting dog, not a pastry dessert).

The top five dogs in each breed are invited. Any other dog who has achieved AKC "champion" status can enter a lottery that fills out the field and places professional handlers alongside individual dog owners in a sport sometimes affected by its clubby politics and peculiar personalities spoofed so accurately by the 2000 mockumentary film "Best in Show."

"I always tell people there's a lot of truth to that movie," said Minneapolis' Wendy Quinnell, who successfully entered her handsome, shaggy Briard herding dog in the lottery because she wanted to show at least once at Westminster. They drive home today with a red rosette ribbon and a gold medallion for winning "Best of Opposite Sex," for being the best female Briard in a breed category won by a male.

Big crowds pack the Garden

The capacity-crowd audience is drawn by a spectacle the show organizers term America's second-longest continuously held sporting event -- the Kentucky Derby's first running proceeded the first Westminster show in 1877 by two years -- and which was televised in 1948, three years before "I Love Lucy" premiered. For two consecutive nights, the USA Network, with an assist from CNBC, carries the happenings.

Lake Elmo's Dave Slattum arrived Monday with the nation's No. 1 Dalmatian, Apple, who he trains and shows at his Animal Inn training school for a Kansas couple. Winner of 93 "Best of Breeds," including the national Dalmatian specialty show in the last year alone, Apple left the Garden with an honorable-mention award after he came up lame -- an injury perhaps suffered walking on ice after getting stuck in a Wisconsin snowstorm en route to New York City -- on the green carpet. A pre-show massage couldn't get him ready for the big game.

"Just like an athlete," said Slattum. "What can you do?"

Apple returns to Lake Elmo, where his favorite thing is running down the Slattum's hallway and sliding across the floor on a throw rug.

Uno hits the morning television talk-show circuit to become what Westminster communications director and television analyst David Frei calls the "next single-name celebrity in our world."

"Snoopy would be proud," said Uno's handler, Aaron Wilkerson. "I'm just very lucky to be at the end of his lead."