When I was a little boy, my father ran a Plain Dog Show. Thoroughbreds were discouraged from entering.

He made up and gave Blue Ribbons & prizes for categories like.

• The dog with the most spots
• The blackest dog
• The yellowest dog
• The dog with the longest tail
• Et cetera

He made up categories by watching and getting reports on the various dogs brought by children. Every child's dog won a Blue Ribbon and got a prize.

To advertise the show, he had posters printed. The posters included a poem about a young boy who owned a yellow dog who had never won a prize. The little boy praised his dog as loyal, faithful, and deserving of prizes never won.

I would like to find a copy of that poem.

Your dad was cool. That's movie-dad stuff.

Sorry, don't know the poem.

it's not your poem
i just wrote this a few weeks ago
here is the link to read it

warmingtrend27.blogspot.com/2008/06/yellow-dog.html[/url]

Old Yorkshire Dog Poem
The dogs all had a meeting,
They came from near and far.
Some came by public transport,
Some even came by car.
But before they were allowed
To enter in the hall,
Each had to hang his Butt hole
On a hook upon the wall.
They all got nicely seated,
Each mother, son and sire.
When a dirty little yellow dog,
Began to holler, 'FIRE'!
They all jumped up together,
They had no time to look.
And each grabbed at random,
A butt hole from a hook.
This got their butt holes all mixed up,
And made them very sore.
To wear another butt hole,
They hadn't worn before.
And that's the reason why a dog,
Will even leave a bone,
To smell another butt hole,
In the hope to find his own.

After various searches over the past few years, I finally found it yesterday in Dog's Book of Verse.

THE BEST DOG


Yes, I went to see the bow-wows, and I looked at every one,
Proud dogs of each breed and strain that's underneath the sun;
But not one could compare with--you may hear it with surprise--
A little yellow dog I know that never took a prize.

Not that they would have skipped him when they gave the ribbons out,
Had there been a class to fit him--though his lineage is in doubt.
No judge of dogs could e'er resist the honest, faithful eyes
Of that plain little yellow dog that never took a prize.

Suppose he wasn't trained to hunt, and never killed a rat,
And isn't much on tricks or looks or birth--well, what of that?
That might be said of lots of folks whom men call great and wise,
As well as of that yellow dog that never took a prize.

It isn't what a dog can do, or what a dog may be,
That hits a man. It's simply this--does he believe in me?
And by that test I know there's not the compeer 'neath the skies
Of that plain little yellow dog that never took a prize.

Oh, he's the finest little pup that ever wagged a tail,
And followed man with equal joy to Congress or to jail.
I'm going to start a special show--'Twill beat the world for size--
For faithful little yellow dogs, and each shall have a prize.

ANONYMOUS.

The Yellow Dog.
Not the dog with yellow fur,
And with yellow sounding yelp;
Not the quadripedal cur,
Not the flea infested whelp.

But the yellow biped wretch,
Who invents the yellow trash,
Which the yellow papers stretch,
Into yellow balderdash.

He's the yellow dog I mean,
And his vitriolic pen
Bites with hydrophobic spleen,
In the crowded haunts of men.

How he chuckles, how he gloats,
Over crime and dark despair;
How his very pencil notes
Horrify the pitying air !

And his dream of paradise
Is a place where, thick and fast,
Horrors and sensations rise,
Each more awful than the last.

So, to Heavenize the earth
With a Hell of dread dismay;
And to compensate the dearth
Of the direful day by day;

Seizes he some trivial act,
Born at some unguarded time,
Builds upon this molehill fact
Mountains of suspected crime.

None is safe with him around,
For the most untarnished name
And the purest virtue found
He is keenest to defame.

He has lost all sense of truth,
Falsehood is his very breath,-
Calumny his meat, forsooth
What to him is life or death ?

But the incensed public cries:
"Outrage, thou hast done thy
worst!
Justice, veil no more thine eyes!
Vengence, let thy fury burst!"

And the yellow dog turns pale,
For in dread alarm he hears
Of a dog who lost his tail
Just behind his yellow ears.

__Harry Edward Mills.