Ugly contest competition dog-eat-dog

PETALUMA, Calif., May 27 (UPI) -- The World's Ugliest Dog competition at the Sonoma-Marin Fair in California became vicious when vote tampering eradicated tens of thousands of online votes.

Victoria -- an ugly, half-blind greyhound who had been popular with Internet voters -- lost all her votes in an unexplained Web site deletion, the Times of London reported Saturday.

Pee Wee Martini -- a Chinese crested mix -- experienced the same catastrophic loss two days later.

And Munchin and Rascal were the next dogs victimized by Internet voter fraud.

A total of 35,000 votes were scratched for the contest's four top dogs.

"Clearly there was something very suspicious going on," Vicki DeArmon, the contest's organizer told a Times correspondent. "We were getting angry e-mails from owners and fans demanding to know what had happened."

Lucille Bald, who was trailing the other four canines, was suddenly in first place. It was later discovered Lucille had been stripped of her ugly title in Orlando's contest three years ago, but her owner pleaded innocent.

Security on the World's Ugliest Dog Web site has been improved and this year's winner will instead be selected by a panel of judges.

The graft was understandable because, as DeArmon said, "It's about fame and glory."