NEW YORK — True to his breed, Matisse the Portuguese water dog likes to play in the koi fish pond. He enjoys going on long bicycle runs, chewing Benny Bully’s liver treats and falling asleep on his back.
Pretty standard stuff for a lot of pooches.
Oh, he also got a holiday card from the White House.
So perhaps it was only fitting Monday that when the Westminster Kennel Club dog show started on Presidents Day, the Portie who’s a cousin to Obama family pet Sunny was the early favorite.
“He’s a real dog. He likes to play, he likes to get dirty,” co-owner Milan Lint said. “He just cleans up really well.”
At 3½ years old, Matisse indeed has cleaned up. This is the 400th event he’s entered — he’s won best in show 238 times, among the most in canine history.
On a frigid day in New York, Matisse got to rest as many of the 2,711 dogs in 192 breeds and varieties stepped into the judging ring at Piers 92 and 94, the exhibition space stretching into the icy Hudson River.
The hound, toy, non- sporting and herding group winners were to be picked Monday night at Madison Square Garden.
Matisse is in the working group, which he’s won the last two years at Westminster. The sporting, working and terrier winners will be selected tonight, with retired California trial-court judge David Merriam choosing the best in show right before 11 p.m. EST.
If picked, Matisse would become the first Portie to win America’s top dog show. Among the other prime contenders: Swagger the old English sheepdog finished second at Westminster in 2013 and Nathan the bloodhound won the recent national show that’s tape-delayed and televised on Thanksgiving Day.
Matisse definitely knows his way around the ring. The nation’s top-winning show dog in 2014 likes to entertain his fans. He often gets into the “downward dog” yoga position, stretching his back, as he approaches the judge.
He has that “hard to identify quality, that je ne sais quoi,” Lint said.
Lint also was one of breeders for Sunny, who in 2013 joined another Portie named Bo as a pet for President Barack Obama and his family.
Sunny and Matisse have never met. Not yet, anyway. But who knows? A few months after Uno the beagle won Westminster in 2008, he visited President George W. Bush at the White House.
