Lion wins Douglas top dog

Jalunbu Park Port Douglas was the scene of this year’s Pooch Party with a record number of entries. In fine sunny conditions Port’s proud pooch owners paraded their best friend around to win valuable prizes.

There was dog lookalike, cutest dog, naughtiest dog, best dog trick and so many other categories. But when it came to the Douglas ‘Top Dog’, the best in show if you like, the judges were unanimous.

Fergus the ‘Lion’ with owner and lion tamer Peter Mill was the overall winner.

Fergus was almost scary as he walked around the parade ring like the ‘King of the Beasts’.

Peter told Newsport he got the idea after reading an article about a dog owner overseas who dressed his dog up to look like a leopard. You guessed it, the dog escaped causing panic in the streets when the man’s neighbours thought it was a real big cat.

Lucky to be here

A great effort indeed because Fergus is lucky to be alive. You might remember a story I wrote for
Newsport in March where we told you about Fergus, who was lucky to survive after he swallowed a fishing hook.

Fergus was walking on a leash, with his owners Peter and France on the iconic Port Douglas Sugar Wharf when he started chewing on something. Some uncaring fishers had discarded a hook, line, sinker with some bait still attached and left it sitting on a concrete section of the wharf.

Fergus then decided to chew on what he thought might be a new plaything attached to a tasty morsel. Peter was luckily able to remove the line and the small lead ball, but the hook had gone down his gullet.

His shocked owners rushed Fergus to the Port Douglas Vet where he was operated on to remove the potentially dangerous fishing hook.

“I thought he had chewing gum in his mouth, then I saw fishing line and a sinker poking out of his mouth, so Peter removed that part but then we realised he’d swallowed the hook,” said France.

But all’s well that ends well, and Fergus has now come out triumphant at the Pooch Party.