Yesterday, a ridiculously cute beagled named Uno won Westminster. He was the first Beagle to take the "Best in Show" prize in the competition's 117-year history. And who doesn't love a Beagle? You know, Snoopy and all that. It's fun when the neighborhood yard dog leaves the powedered poodles and pomeranians in the dust.
But I had a hunch. Could a Joe-sixpack breed winning Westminster mean we've got a recession coming for sure? I took a look at the Westminster record.
Sure enough, there's a strong correlation (although with a slight lag) between a Westminster winner's breed and economic prosperity. Take a look at late 1920s. Things looked great, unless you noticed that the '28 show was taken by a fox terrier and '29 by a rough-coated collie—a farm dog for chrissake. The depression years? Three more fox terriers! Things looked grim indeed until 1933, when a classy Airdale came along and rescued the economy.
Fast forward to the stagflation 70s—launched by a pair of utilitarian Springer Spaniels. And then we have the everybody-money-crazy Reagan years, preceded by the '82 win of a Pekingese named St Aubrey Dragonora of Elsdo, and the '83 victory of a majestically high-maintenance Afghan Hound.
The '87 stock market crash? A German Shepherd's victory earlier in the year all but sealed the market's fate, while the 2000 bursting of the dot-com bubble was foreshadowed when a Springer Spaniel named Shameless won the show. And of course, we can thank an exotic Kerry Blue Terrier for stock market boom we all enjoyed until last year's slow-down (brought on by, yep, another Spaniel).
My guess is that much like fashion designers, dog show judges unconsciously factor in the economic zeitgeist when picking a winner. Sure, it's fun when Fido wins the show. But it's murder on the economy. Next year, I'm rooting for the pomeranian.
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