IN PICTURES | Scamp the Tramp wins World’s Ugliest Dog Contest

Scamp Tramp will never win a beauty contest. But he’s won an ugly one.

bug-eyed, drelocked pooch took top hors Friday night at 31st annual World’s Ugliest Dog Contest. Owner Yvonne Morones of Santa Rosa, California, won an appearance with Scamp on “Today” show, $1,500 in cash, ar $1,500 to donate to an animal shelter and a trophy size of a Rottweiler.

“He’s Scamp Champ, longer Scamp Tramp,” Morones told Santa Rosa Press-Democrat after victory. “I think audience saw his beautiful spirit and everything he’s given back to community.”

Scamp makes volunteer visits to schoolchildren and a local senior citizens center. street dog from Compton was rescued by Morones in 2014 after she spotted him on Pet Finder.

“It was on way home that I knew I me right choice,” she said in a contest press statement. “re we were, two strangers in a car on way home to a new start. Bob Marley was playing ‘One Love’ and I looked over and little Scamp was bobbing his he. It was like he knew he h found his forever home.”

Scamp beat out 18 or contestants who showed off ir droopy tongues, bowed legs, perpetually confused looks and or strange attributes. contestants got to walk red carpet and preen for oring fans at Soma-Marin Fairgrounds in heart of rrn California wine country. competition, as y say, was fierce.

Second place went to Wild Thang, a Pekinese with bey eyes and a disturbing tongue, owned by Ann Lewis of Los Angeles. Third place went to Tostito, a Chihuahua whose damd ears and droopy tongue make him look like he just stuck his foot into an electrical socket. Tostito, owned by Molly Horgan of Falmouth, Maine, also won Spirit Award.

This year’s People’s Choice Award went to Meatloaf, a bulldog mix with protruding teeth owned by Denae Pruner of Sacramento, California. Everyone kws ugliness is in eye of beholder and, to a dog lover, re is such thing as an uncomely canine. Weird-looking, maybe. Appearance-challenged, perhaps. Or, as owners of ugly dogs like to say, “unique.”

Like Willie Wonka, a sweet-natured pit bull abandoned after he was discovered to have a genetic maly that left his legs so bowed he could barely walk. With a chuckle, publicist Christy Gentry said competition wasn’t just about being ugly.

“Judges are looking for special attributes like hanging tongues, slobber, drool ( more better). Maybe unusual patches of skin or hair,” she explained.

Last year’s champion, an English bulldog named Zsa Zsa, with a tongue that hung nearly to ground, endeared herself to judges when she sneezed and drooled all over m.

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Soon she was heed to New York for national TV appearances. Sly, Zsa Zsa died about a year ago at 9. Ar previous winner, Nana, me cover of an album by Grateful De spiff band Ratdog. Organizers say contest isn’t just skin-deep. It’s also about bringing attention to needs of rescue dogs.

Most competitors were previously abandoned or rescued from kill shelters in U.S., found abandoned on streets or seized from unscrupulous breeders.

“What we’re really doing is we’re showcasing dogs that have been rescued and opted and brought into loving homes,” Gentry said. “se are sort of spokesdogs for option.”