Picking Valley Stream’s cutest dog no easy task

Want to have the hardest job in the world? Try having to select the cutest dog in Valley Stream. To every person, their pet, be it a dog, cat, bird, hamster, whatever, is in fact the cutest.

Thankfully, I had some help. Last Friday morning, a panel of judges went through more than 60 photos of dogs submitted by you, our readers, for the Cutest Dog in Valley Stream contest. Sponsored by the Herald and the Friends of the Valley Stream Dog Park, we held this contest to celebrate the grand opening of the village’s dog park, which officially opens to the public this Saturday.

Our panel of judges included myself and Kevin Plaut, the executive assistant to the publishers, from the Herald; Michael Powers from the Friends group; Vinny Ang from the village; and Dr. John Charos and Mary Smith from Central Veterinary Associates, which generously donated several prizes.

We gathered in the Herald’s conference room and looked a slideshow featuring all the entries. Everyone also had a sheet — actually two sheets of 11-by-17 paper because of the amount of entries — with all the dogs on it. The judges only saw pictures and the name of the dog. No one knew who the dogs belonged to.

We discussed, debated and came to our decision. It wasn’t easy, because there were a lot of really cute dogs to choose from.

With each submission I received leading up to judging day, I can’t think of one that didn’t make me go “awww” (and I’m a cat person, to be honest). Many of you included little stories about your pets, a personal touch that I really enjoyed. Even if you dog wasn’t picked, I enjoyed learning something about them.

We had very few repeat dog names in the contest. There were two Muffins, two Chloes and a Roxi and a Roxie.

Thank you to everyone who submitted a picture of their dog to the contest. I was overwhelmed by the response, and was thrilled to have so many great entries to choose from. And thank you to my fellow judges, who helped to make such a difficult decision.

There’s one thing I learned — Valley Stream has a lot of cute dogs. I hope you will check out the new dog park when it opens on May 5.