Lichen Stays, Wins Again

Baptiste Kasprzak, who has handled the winning entry since its first Best in Show, collected the Ladle on Saturday for a lichen that has not moved in four years. The Karrow Deep Dog Show drew sixty-one entries, nineteen of them dogs.

The lichen, a grey-green patch of about two hand-spans on a slab of vent rock, was admitted in 2771 after a judge, Noor Salave'a, searched the rulebook for a clause against it. She found none. "It has better coat condition and stays when told," she said at the time. She repeated it on Saturday, with the same expression.

Kasprzak rises at five to mist the rock. He walks the lichen the length of the show hall on a tray, at a pace set by the tray. "People say it never does anything," he said. "Sit, down, stay. Not once has it refused. I wish I could say that about my wife."

The runner-up, a hound named Pilot, broke from the line twice. His owner, Mehmet Fonoti, has entered for eleven years. He said he was not bitter, and that Pilot had eaten the ribbon.

The show committee will vote in spring on a rule requiring entrants to have a heartbeat. Three members have said they will vote against it. Their entries are mosses.