World's Ugliest Dog Contest — Scruffy hairless Chinese Crested dog with tongue out behind a blue prize ribbon

World's Ugliest Dog Contest

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Published October 8, 2026

The World's Ugliest Dog Contest is an annual event at the Sonoma-Marin County Fair in California where unconventional-looking dogs compete for a cash prize and a trophy. Running since the 1970s, the contest turned winners like 2018's rescued English bulldog Zsa Zsa into viral celebrities, sparking recurring online debates about whether the champions are hideous or secretly adorable.

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Overview

The World's Ugliest Dog Contest is a yearly competition held during the Sonoma-Marin County Fair in Petaluma, California, where owners parade dogs with droopy jowls, lolling tongues, missing fur, bulging eyes and other distinctive features past a rotating panel of judges2. The winner takes home a trophy and a cash prize, which was $1,500 by the 2018 edition1. A majority of recent champions have come from shelters, rescue groups or former puppy mills, and organizers use the event to push shelter adoption rather than mock the animals2.

Online, the contest works less as a format and more as an annual news beat. Every June, press photos of the newly crowned winner spread across Twitter, Reddit and news aggregators, and users split into two reliable camps: those who find the dog grotesque and those who insist the dog is actually cute5. That recurring split, plus the always-quotable backstories about puppy mills and dog auctions, keeps the contest a dependable viral animal story even in years without a breakout star1.

Origin & Background

Platform
Sonoma-Marin County Fair (offline) / Twitter and news coverage (viral spread)
Creator
Sonoma-Marin County Fair
Date
1970

The World's Ugliest Dog Contest has been running annually in the fourth week of June since the 1970s and became part of the Sonoma-Marin County Fair in California in 1988, making 2018 the 30th year under the fair12. The contest attracts entrants from around the world, and for several years was sponsored by and aired on Animal Planet5.

The event picked up a stronger online presence in the early 2000s when the Sonoma-Marin County Fair began hosting online voting, though the voting is non-binding and the actual winner is picked by in-person judges5. The contest has also been featured in a book, World's Ugliest Dogs: The Official World's Ugliest Dog Contest Book, and in an hour-long documentary called Worst in Show5.

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How It Spread

The contest's online footprint grew alongside Animal Planet's coverage and wire-service photos of each year's winner. In 2017, a Neapolitan mastiff named Martha won on the strength of cheeks so heavy they drooped nearly to her knees and flapped when she shook her head, a detail that got quoted widely in news write-ups1.

The clearest viral moment came in June 2018, when Zsa Zsa, a 9-year-old English bulldog from Anoka, Minnesota, took the crown with her lolling tongue, upward-thrusting chin and painted pink nails1. Zsa Zsa had spent five years in a Missouri puppy mill before Underdog Rescue pulled her from a dog auction, and her owner Megan Brainard found her on Petfinder1. After winning, Zsa Zsa flew JetBlue to New York, in her own cabin seat, for an appearance on the Today show1.

The win set off the usual split reaction online. Twitter user @BrandyLJensen posted that the dog was indeed ugly and racked up more than 1,300 likes, while @lppny argued that anyone who called the dog ugly was 'a cop,' a tweet widely screencapped alongside the news photos5.

Timeline

1970

The World's Ugliest Dog Contest begins running annually in late June[2].

1988

The contest is folded into the Sonoma-Marin County Fair in Petaluma, California[2].

2000

The Sonoma-Marin County Fair adds non-binding online voting, broadening the contest's web presence[5].

2017

Martha, a Neapolitan mastiff with knee-length drooping cheeks, wins the title[1].

2018-06-23

Zsa Zsa, a rescued English bulldog from a Missouri puppy mill, wins at the 30th fair-era contest and takes home $1,500[1].

2018-06-25

Zsa Zsa flies to New York for a Today show appearance, and the win is covered by NPR and shared widely on Twitter[1][5].

Frequently Asked Questions