Over the last couple days, the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show has taken place in New York. Thousands of pups, along with their handlers, came to compete in seven categories: Hound, toy, non-sporting, herding, sporting, working and terrier, with the winners of each competing against each other in a final round. Dog lovers, the results are in. Penny, a Doberman Pinscher, took home the event's top honors—and her victory is an extra sweet one.
And the Winner of the Westminster Dog Show Is…
A sentimental win
Published Feb 4, 2026
•2:58pm
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The 4- (soon to be 5-) year-old pup, whose official name is "GCHP CH Connquest Best of Both Worlds," is just the fifth of her breed to win Best in Show in the competition's 150 year history. It's also a bittersweet moment for her handler, Andy Linton, who won Best in Show in 1989 with another Doberman, Indy. Per The New York Times, Linton has Parkinson's disease. When asked about how it impacted the preparation for the show, he told the paper, “I had some goals, and this was one of them.”
As for the victorious pooch, Linton shared, "She’s very chill. But like I said, she can get pretty pumped up for a bad guy or a squirrel." Now that she's been crowned Best in Show, Penny will head to Toronto to live with her owners.
Second place, or Reserve Best in Show, went to "GCHP CH Next Generation's Accelerate," known as Cota. He is a 5-year-old Chesapeake Bay Retriever who happily chomped down on his victory ribbon like an athlete taking a symbolic nibble of their gold medal.
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Both dogs pulled ahead of four other colorful contenders: Zaida, an Afghan hound; Cookie, a Maltese; JJ, a Lhasa apso and Graham, an Old English sheepdog, who all brought dramatic hairstyles and personalities to the floor.
The Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show is the country's second-longest continuously held sporting event, and the oldest non-proft dedicated to the sport. Of its significance, Linton told The New York Times, "This is our Super Bowl, this is our N.B.A. Finals, this is all of that. So to win it, it’s just sheer exhilaration."
