top dog

Former television executive Lori Smith of Lake Oswego tranforms her white boxer Yuki into a canine supermodel of the Internet

By Cliff Newell

The Lake Oswego Review, May 7, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Lake Oswego’s Lori Smith and her white boxer Yuki.

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The first time Lori Smith saw Yuki’s face she didn’t like it.

“I didn’t want her. She was so hideously ugly,” Smith said. “I’d never seen a white boxer before. She looked like some kind of little space alien when I saw picture on the Internet.”

Certainly, Smith had no intention of getting a dog that looked like a space alien. But oddly enough, a few days later Smith found herself driving down a California freeway on her way to adopt the little white boxer puppy.

She still has difficulty explaining her action, except to say, “Fate is kind of weird.”

Weird, but in this case brilliant. Smith not only found a pet in Yuki, she found a career, because Yuki’s face is her fortune.

Now you see Yuki’s cute and lovable face everywhere: T-shirts, mousepads, calendars, coffee mugs, and especially the Internet, where she is the second most popular dog on www.dogster.com with a whopping one-third of a million votes.

“Yuki is a dog super model,” said Smith. “She the most beautiful white boxer I’ve ever seen (Smith’s first impression was extremely wrong) and very photogenic. She has some very strange talents.”

Certainly dog-lovers on the Internet think so. Yuki has received 50,000 hits on Youtube, where she spins around and barks on cue in the video that Smith made of her. Then there is Yuki’s “dogumentary,” a slide show with professional editing and music that shows some of Yuki’s most magical moments.

Still, Yuki’s greatest accomplishment is transforming Smith’s life.

Stuck in the smoggiest section of Los Angeles and up to her neck in pressure from her career in advertising in big-time television, Smith needed a way out. So first she turned Yuki into a dog star of the Internet Age, then she moved to Lake Oswego.

Truly, Lori Smith can give a big thumbs up to the fickle finger of fate.

Now a professional photographer and savvy media pro with a Hollywood touch, Smith said, “I’m reconnecting with my passion. I’m so happy not to be doing advertising. Except I like doing my own dog’s advertising.”

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