Patty Hearst Wins With French Bulldog At Westminster Dog Show

Patty Hearst Wins With French Bulldog At Westminster Dog Show - Read Below

THE owner had just the right touch, trying to soothe her French bulldog's trembling paws. "There, there," Patty Hearst said.

Far removed from the days when, as a machinegun-toting revolutionary, she captivated a nation, Patricia Hearst Shaw was in more genteel surroundings yesterday.

She was tending to Diva at Madison Square Garden, petting her soft head on dogdom's biggest day.

Surrounded by Cardigan Welsh corgis, Chinese shar-peis and Parson Russell terriers, Ms Hearst Shaw, 53, blended right in at the Westminster Kennel Club.

"When people find out it's me, it's like it doesn't make sense," she said.

"Frenchie people know me because I've been around but others seemed surprised."

That summed up Mitzie McGavic's reaction. In town from Florida to barrack for her friend's Australian shepherd, she was startled to learn who was standing so near.

"You're kidding. Is she the Patty Hearst?" Ms McGavic asked. "Showing dogs at Westminster. Who knew?"

Ms Hearst Shaw has been working with dogs for three years, and her first trip to Westminster was worth it.

Her prize, with a champion's name of Shann's Legally Blonde, was a red ribbon as Best of Opposite Sex -- a male won the breed, and hers was judged top female.

"It's overwhelming," Ms Hearst Shaw said.

The granddaughter of William Randolph Hearst gained her greatest notoriety in 1974 when, at 19, she was kidnapped in 1974 by the radical Symbionese Liberation Army.

She later was photographed with a gun robbing a California bank and spent almost two years in prison, but her sentence was commuted by president Jimmy Carter.

News From: http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23203872-5012748,00.html