My dog Teddy finished 14th out of 31 people in my friend Chu’s Catalina Wine Mixer Charity March Madness bracket (tickets to the fabulous event still available).

She’s a smart girl, but LOL Joe Reed. You went to Michigan and had the Wolverines in the final game and still couldn’t beat my dog. (CBSSports doesn’t let you change the name of your bracket, so Teddy’s bracket was technically named Jake Fowler (2).)

I guess Spencer and Chris (went to Illinois, may never make the Tourney again), Vic (Notre Dame alum, heart-breakingly left out of the bracket), Seth (hitched his wagon to MSU and Arizona), Sadah (more of a swimmer) and Robo (loves hockey) have excuses they can rationalize, but losing to a gal who would rather sniff butts than watch basketball is ruff.

I realize Teddy finishing 14th isn’t exactly as cool as Fashionista Fran winning the office pool picking games based on jersey pantones or Denease in accounting filling out her bracket based on vacation destinations that she’d like to escape your non-time-sheet-filling-out-ass to, but as a proud parent, I still have to brag.

For the record, Teddy didn’t beat me because I diligently studied Ken Pom opponent field goal percentage allowed rankings and was honorable mention all-conference in the Wisconsin Little Ten (i.e. I know hoops), but I’m very proud she beat 17 people and finished in the top half of the standings.

How did she do it? By simply using her animal instincts. This was her criteria for picking games:

• Dogs always win.
• Cats always lose (except for Arizona, she hates the NCAA/ESPN and wanted to support players getting treats).
• Dogs descended from Wolves so Wolves advance unless facing dogs.
• Animal mascots win over human mascots.
• If she has a toy that’s the same animal as the mascot, they win (She has a Tiger, which helped Clemson and Auburn.).
• She’s fascinated by birds (good for Kansas, Creighton).
• She loves her human family members (helped Loyola, Kansas and Wisconsin – hypothetically).
• Her best dog friend is a bulldog.

Tournament Highlights

Yes, Teddy was one of the 3% of people who picked the 16-seed UMBC Retrievers to beat 1-seed Virginia because…Retrievers.

Bernedoodles are notoriously smart, so she didn’t pick them to keep going considering a 16-seed had never beat a 1 in the history of Earth, but I’m honestly surprised this momentum didn’t translate to an even higher finish in the pool.

Teddy also picked two of the Final Four teams thanks to the love she has for her human family. Her mom went to Kansas and her uncle Zach works as a physical therapist for Loyola (ask him about his Sister Jean PT sessions).

She probably would have won the entire bracket with ease had either of the bulldog teams, Gonzaga and Butler, shown up. She loves bulldogs, especially her BFF Franklin, so she had to pick an all-bulldog final. She’s been friends with Franklin since she was a puppy.

Speaking of which, she did beat Franklin’s dad Burke. Bahaha Burke, you lost to someone who ate her bracket.