ODDLY ENOUGH

ODDLY ENOUGH

Meatball crowned Beautiful Bulldog at Iowa pageant

DES MOINES, Iowa

Dozens of slobbering bulldogs dressed in everything from tuxedos to tutus shuffled onto the blue carpet Monday to strut their stuff.

None were a match for Meatball, a brown- and-white pup crowned the winner of the 31st annual Beautiful Bulldog pageant in downtown Des Moines. Meatball beat out 49 tail-wagging wannabes who came from as far away as South Carolina to compete in the event and serve as the official mascot for the 101st annual Drake Relays track-and-field event.

I’m speechless,” said Meatball’s co-owner, Ryan Anderson of Des Moines. “He’s got a lot of character to him. He’s got a lot of personality, and he likes playing with everyone else.”

As winner, Meatball received a key to the city, a royal cape and crown. He will make numerous public appearances at Drake Relays events, which continue through Saturday.

Meatball’s secret weapon — besides a perfectly wrinkled face and a proud potbelly — was the handful of supporters wearing blue “Team Meatball” T-shirts and cheering on the charismatic showman in his rookie appearance.

Crocodile forces Australian aerobics class to delay start

SYDNEY

The biweekly water-aerobics class at a holiday park in northern Australia was postponed Tuesday when an unwanted guest entered the pool — a 5-foot-long crocodile.

Workers at the Howard Springs Holiday Park on the outskirts of the tropical northern city of Darwin went to the pool to scoop out leaves and otherwise prepare it for the class when they were surprised to find the croc, which had apparently crawled under a fence from a nearby swamp.

“We went down like normal to check the pool out because Tuesdays and Thursdays the local ladies of Howard Springs do their water aerobics,” park manager Geoff Thompson was quoted as saying on the Australian Broadcasting Corp.’s Web site.

A government ranger was summoned to remove the visitor, which was identified as a freshwater crocodile — generally considered to be capable of giving a nasty bite but rarely fatal to humans.

“They were all there waiting for the ranger to collect it and once he got it out of the water they started their aerobics,” Thompson said.

The crocodile was likely to be handed to a local wildlife park.

Crocodile numbers have burgeoned in northern Australia since hunting that pushed the animal almost to extinction was banned in 1971.

Attacks on humans have increased, with four people killed by crocodiles in seven months from 2008 to early 2009.

Associated Press