Rachel Syme

After eight months of preparation, this was the last dress rehearsal for the beauty pageant that night. It was not going well.

The women had only ever practiced the opening number — a dance medley that featured sensual body rolls to the Weeknd’s “Worth It” and up-tempo shimmying to Beyoncé and Ciara — in backyards and rehearsal rooms, and they were having trouble adapting to the larger space. For one thing, they had to run a lot farther to grab their dogs.

This is the way it was supposed to go: When Ciara sings, “You know you want this yummy, yummy all in your tummy,” each woman would gracefully peel away and scurry to the wings to find her dog, which she would then promenade across the stage.

The glittery ladies, who were vying to become the first-ever Miss Dog Mom USA, would then end the dance number — pups by their side — in a tableau vivant.

But the plan was falling apart. There were not enough dog handlers backstage to corral the pets, so the contestants found themselves frantically searching in the dark for their Yorkiepoos and Pomskies and chocolate Labs.

“Maybe we could split the dogs into two smaller groups?” asked Heather Ber, 27, whose day job as a stage manager made her the contestant most likely to find a solution. She directed her question toward the sound booth at the back of the theater, where the pageant choreographer, Liz Piccoli, and the two directors, Desh Valcin and Samantha Mistretta, sat surveying the chaos.

Piccoli, a former ballerina who mostly choreographs for off-Broadway musicals and experimental operas, found this job via Craigslist, thinking it might be fun to create a one-off dance piece involving dogs.

It had proved more challenging than expected.

She spoke forcefully over the PA system, urging the women to sprint offstage as fast as possible in their stilettos (the rules required heels to be a minimum of 2 inches). She reminded them that this was a competition, and that the judges were going to be looking for composure and a can-do attitude above all things. “If you want to win,” she barked from the control booth, “you should be living on that stage.”

Behind the curtain, a dozen dogs began to bark as well.

You might assume that someone would have thought of this perfect Venn diagram of social media, beauty pageant, puppy adoration, grinning female empowerment, and Gilded Age excess by now. But in fact, this was the first ever Miss Dog Mom USA pageant. The spectacle onstage was a live-action mash-up of “Best in Show” and “Drop Dead Gorgeous,” with a dollop of “Dance Moms” on the side.

And to be perfectly clear: this was a serious event. Any high comedy that ensued — the moment when a 3-pound, bug-eyed Chihuahua named Voldemort decided to stop walking, for instance, forcing his owner to drag him across the stage like a dust bunny on a string — was purely incidental.

The dogs, it would be fair to say, had no real agenda for the evening. But the women were there to win, to walk away with $1,000 and the sateen sash and a yearlong contract to wave from parade floats and officiate at canine weddings (yes, they exist) as Miss Dog Mom 2019.

And so they were determined to get the opening number down. They took it from the top, in costume, with their backs to the audience, striking saucy poses under red gel lights. As they swiveled around, they undulated as a spangled unit, like an inky, iridescent sea creature.

Maria Ducasse, 34, a professional dog walker from East New York, managed to steer Bella, a Shih Tzu-greyhound mix and the only female dog in the show, into the spotlight right as the beat dropped. Bella, immune to the poise expected of pageant hopefuls, began to gnaw at her leash and got tangled up in it. But in the end, both dog and woman hit their marks. The show would go on.

Desh Valcin, 31, a tall, elegant woman with close-cropped hair and nerd-chic black plastic glasses, first came up with the idea for Miss Dog Mom a few years ago, when she was telling a friend how happy she was when she was 16 and competing in Miss Teen USA.

From that moment, Valcin fixated on how to fuse her love of beauty pageants with her passion for her pets. Then, last summer, while strolling with her two dogs, it hit her: all you needed to turn a routine dog walk into a glamorous catwalk is a ballgown and an audience.

“Everyone in the dog world has pageant-type events, but they are for dogs,” she said recently. “What if we did a pageant modeled after Miss USA, where people get to showcase their style in addition to their dogs?”

Valcin already knew a thing or two about the dog world. In 2015, she started her luxury dog events company, Chase &amp; Papi, named for her two dogs. Chase &amp; Papi holds fancy “Yappy Hour” parties around Manhattan in private lofts and in the lobbies of glossy apartment buildings. Dog owners pay $65 for an open bar, appetizers and a catered dog buffet.

After her dog pageant epiphany, Valcin put out an open call online for Miss Dog Mom contestants. “Over 300 girls signed up,” she said, but most of them dropped out after learning about the heavy time commitment and upfront costs: a $350 entry fee, three separate costume changes for themselves and their dogs, and professional glamour shots with their pups for use in promotional materials.

To expand the applicant pool, Valcin began sending direct messages to prominent dog moms on social media.

Instagram was how Valcin found Leslie Riddle, who at “50-plus and holding” was one of the older women in the pageant. Riddle sat backstage, stroking her Yorkiepoo Puccini, an 11-year-old rescue who also happens to be the reigning “Most Photogenic” champion of Barking Beauties, a dog show held every summer in the Hamptons.

Riddle is platinum blond, with a warm smile and a honeyed southern accent. As a former Miss Texas Teen and a finalist for Miss Texas USA, she was the only Miss Dog Mom contestant to have pageant experience. (She also was a Rockette for five years.) So she became the de facto pageant mom to the 12 women who ultimately signed on in August, many of whom had never been in a public performance, let alone a full-blown beauty pageant involving quick changes and animal wrangling.

In the two cramped dressing rooms, an hour before the pageant was set to begin, the scene vacillated between a petting zoo and a Sephora counter. In the corner of a fluorescent space that functioned as the green room sat a pallet of donated wee-wee pads, which the four-legged contestants were encouraged to use.

Last summer, when rehearsals were first coming together in backyards, most of the women viewed the pageant as a lark, Riddle said. But as the show drew closer, the organizers pushed them to feel increasingly competitive. “They made us film a promotional video,” Riddle said. “They wanted us to act like Real Housewives rather than fun-loving women doing this for charity.”

“I mean, of course we all want to win,” Ber, the stage manager, said as she brushed her longhaired Chihuahua Bentley. “This is my inner drama kid stepping out.”

She did note that unlike some of the other dogs, her Bentley had professional theatrical experience. “He was just in ‘The Wizard of Oz’ at the Axelrod Performing Arts Center in New Jersey,” she said, cooing into Bentley’s face. “Did you do ‘run, Toto, run’ for Mommy? Yes, you did!”

The mood felt more communal than cutthroat. Women shared duo chrome eye shadow palettes and extra bobby pins. Omaira Ortiz, a jovial schoolteacher with a mop of curly hair, suggested that the presence of the dogs seemed to drain the pageant of bad vibes. It is hard to want to go full saboteur when you have the big, wet eyes of a Yorkie with a boutonniere staring up at you.

“Here’s my dress,” Ortiz said, showing off her costume for the compulsory “Havana Nights” segment: a polka dot number with ruffles and a fishtail hem. “And this is Helen’s dress.” She pulled out a similar garment from a rolling rack. “It’s also got the ruffles.”

In the other dressing room, Briana Goldman and Trisha Venkatasetty were bonding over their obsession with Pomskies (theirs are named Beau and Kai). The breed, a cross between a Pomeranian and a Siberian husky, is still relatively uncommon in the city, and the two women had actually met before at Pomsky meet-ups.

As they tried to explain why Pomskies make such good lap dogs, a perky terrier bounded across the room and started sniffing around Goldman’s dog. “Oh, that’s just Howie,” she said. “He thinks Beau is his boyfriend.” It was clear that Beau thought otherwise.

Ducasse, the full-time dog walker and the founder of East New York Dog Lovers, a nonprofit that provides fostering services for dog owners dealing with job loss or eviction, said that several people from the neighborhood had banded together to raise money for her entrance fee and her evening wear.

A friend had stayed up every night for three weeks sewing Bella’s ballgown, a puff of peach taffeta, pink feathers, plastic butterflies and rose gold spangles that Bella immediately began to scratch with her fuzzy gray leg after Ducasse snapped her in. “It took a village to get us here,” she said.

At 6 p.m., the house opened, and the audience began to file into the theater, several with their own dogs in tow. A tiny French bulldog dressed like a bride sat on a woman’s lap in the second row. In the front sat a line of judges, including Roberto Negrin, a “couturier for dogs” and the star of the Bravo series “Furry, Fierce, and Fabulous.” Negrin custom-made the sparkly outfits for Valcin’s dogs, Chase and Papi, as well as for his Chihuahua, Athena, who wore a long, red cape and sat in his lap the whole time.

Other judges included Nicolette Templier, the reigning Miss New York Earth, and Katie Haller, a comedian and former social media manager for BarkBox whose parody rap video, “Dog Mom Anthem,” went viral around Mother’s Day 2017. Haller made it clear she didn’t take the event as seriously as the other judges.

“I think pageants are ridiculous,” she said later. “I am always drawn to the dogs that are not the perfect influencer type. I want to see the dog who sits like a human on the couch, or licks the window because they are just being weird. To me that’s always more interesting than dogs sitting perfectly in a turtleneck sweater.”

Nonetheless, the pageant had a professional sheen as it moved from the opening dance number (a success!) to the costume competition, and the eveningwear segment. For the final segment, the women wore floor-length ballgown while the dogs wore three-piece suits, teeny tiny tuxedos and, in Bella’s case, a custom pink cupcake dress. Puccini, Riddle’s beach-blond Yorkiepoo, wore a flashy silver suit, like a 14-inch Liberace.

By the final round, the judges had conferred, and only five dog moms remained. It was time for the interviews. For a lighthearted variety show about dog parenting, the questions covered surprisingly complex moral and philosophical terrain.

Riddle, first up, was asked if pageants are degrading to women. “How can this be degrading when we are raising money for all these great animals?” she asked, to cheers from the crowd. Then, a little flustered, she added, “Nothing’s degrading, right?” before handing the microphone back the judges.

One contestant fielded a question about pit bull discrimination (her take: pit bulls deserve equal rights).

Ber, the mother of Bentley, who recently performed as Toto in New Jersey, had to speak off the cuff about whether or not she considered a $1,000 fine to be a fair punishment for abusing animals in New York State. “I think that anyone who abuses animals needs to be punished,” she said.

Perhaps the most moving answer of the night came from Ducasse, who was asked about the most influential person in her life. She told the story of how her grandmother raised 12 children. “She came from real big poverty,” Ducasse said, growing teary. “And she never had anyone arrested or in jail.”

Her response — and the optics of selecting the sole female dog in the show to win — seemed to have clinched the title for Ducasse. When the judges crowned her Miss Dog Mom, they presented her with a tiara and a bouquet of roses.

Ducasse will keep her title for one year and, per her contract, must appear at 10 events wearing the Miss Dog Mom sash. Already, she has appeared in the Puerto Rican Day parade. Yoga for Dogs — of course there is yoga for dogs — asked her to become a brand ambassador. She is planning to attend Dog Fashion Week in Manhattan in February.

Bella did not quite seem to understand her victory, but she wagged her tail anyway. When Ducasse found Bella as a puppy six years ago, she was abandoned and starving, stashed inside a dirty fish tank left on a street in the Bronx.

Now she is the pampered dog daughter of a champion, at least for a year.

NEW YORK — On a Sunday afternoon in May, in a rented theater on the Brooklyn waterfront, a group of 12 women in black sequin cocktail dresses stood in a confused clump at the center of the stage, awaiting instruction.

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Rachel Syme

Articles written by the author

The real dog moms of New York City