My favorite dog (other than our own, of course) - Butler Blue II

A couple of blogs back I talked about March Madness and how much we love the hometown team, the Butler University Bulldogs.  They've made it to the Sweet 16 for the fourth time in the past ten years and, although they're being referred to less frequently as a Cinderella team, they still seem to often be called an "underdog." That's okay. They like playing that role.

Perhaps the most important Bulldog of all is Butler Blue II, the team's live mascot.

There’s nothing better than watching Blue go crazy out on the floor when “his team” is introduced. He starts to bark and wag his little stump of a tail like crazy and each of the players gives him a good petting when their name is announced. He then grabs his giant rawhide bone and struts off of the floor.

He was quite a hit at last year's Final Four, where he played to the crowd and his antics got a lot of CBS camera coverage. So, when Butler made the tournament field this year, the university petitioned the NCAA to see if he could attend the games. The NCAA ruled against the attendance of live mascots of any kind at the early round games due to "lack of space" and "tight turnaround time."

Blue immediately took to "his" Twitter feed (@ButlerBlue2) to plead his case and a hashtag was created (#FreeButlerBlue2) that quickly started to trend, but the NCAA didn't back down from their ruling. Blue then did the next best thing - he created a mask that his fans could display and wear to the games, so he could be at the games in spirit and en masse!

Our pup, Greta, is a huge Butler fan and, truth be told, she has a little bit of a crush on Blue, so she modeled his mask and sent him a picture. Blue was so impressed that he retweeted her photo to all of his fans.

Then the Butler boys found themselves in the Sweet Sixteen again and this shot of Blue appeared on the popular website icanhascheezburger.com:

Tonight it's time to play the Wisconsin Badgers in New Orleans. Still banned from the tournament, Blue released a special version of his mask in honor of the event and locale:

Someone brought Blue a treat today. It's the Wisconsin mascot, Bucky Badger, in dog cookie form. Yummy. "Gimme the cookie! Gimme the cookie!"

Poor Bucky didn't stand a chance.



No matter the result of tonight's game, THIS Bulldog has won the love and admiration of basketball and dog fans everywhere. ESPN.com even had a poll this week about Blue's banning, entitled "Should This Cute Dog Be Banned?"

Even though Blue's most famous photo from this week may not win him any points with Wisconsin fans, it has gone viral.  So I'll leave you with this, Blue echoing my own hopes for tonight's big game:

IMPORTANT: All photos and videos (except for the one of Greta) are the property of ButlerBlue2 and/or Butler University.