Ana Banana, officially known as Greta Master of the Night, is the canine version of a supermodel. Yet she doesn’t seem to have a diva bone in her hulking body.
On a recent morning, the Bullmastiff frolics in the spacious yard of her owners, Jeff and Toni Donovan, in Polk City. Ana rolls onto her back and wriggles around excitedly, gathering a coat of dead grass that Toni Donovan strives to brush off.
Ana eventually finds the beloved toy that sparked her nickname, a foam version of an oversized banana, and trots around with the item clamped tightly in her jaws.
“She is full of life, happy, a joy,” Toni Donovan says of her 2-year-old dog. “She’s a big lap baby. When she prances around the yard, people who see her are like, ‘Wow, look at that dog.’ Something about Ana, just how she carries herself, that she turns heads.”
Ana, in her role as Greta Master of the Night, turned heads in February at the 142nd Annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show in New York, one of the most prestigious canine competitions in the world. She was named Best of Opposite Sex in the Bullmastiff category, while a male, T-Boldt’s To Protect and Serve, owned by a couple from Milton, took Best of Breed.
At dog shows such as Westminster, held in Madison Square Garden, judges assess the entrants as handlers lead the canines around the display area. Dogs are scored based on how closely they conform to the standard appearance for the breed, as established by the American Kennel Club.
The Donovans have been breeding Bullmastiffs since 2005. Toni Donovan, a hairdresser, says she hadn’t really intended to subject any of her dogs to the show circuit before Ana came along.
“She is an eye-catcher,” says Toni Donovan, 59. “She is an exceptional-looking Bullmastiff — to me, a spitting image of the standard Bullmastiff — and that’s why we spent the money we spent. It wasn’t planned and it wasn’t an easy expense, but because she’s exceptional is why we do it, to share an exceptional dog.”
Bullmastiffs are among the largest of dog breeds, standing about 2 feet tall at the shoulders and weighing up to 130 pounds. Ruggedly built, they have stocky necks, short ears and a bulbous jaw. Ana has short, tawny fur, with black markings on her snout and around her eyes.
Perhaps the breed’s most distinctive feature is a swirl of deep furrows on the forehead and face.
Ana, weighing about 120 pounds, has a keen appetite and needs exercise to maintain her fitness for shows. For a while, Toni Donovan would ride a four-wheeler along with the dog on a leash, but she stopped after almost running over Ana.
Toni Donovan says she fell in love with the breed because of the dogs’ gentle disposition. She said her husband is “head honcho,” establishing guidelines for the canines to follow.
The couple at one point had 12 Bullmastiffs, though their original three breeding dogs have died in recent years. The canine collection on a recent day included Ana, a 2-year-old male, Django (show name Bullhead Majesty’s Aramis); and three puppies, sired by Django with Marlie, the Donovans’ breeding female.
The couple acquired Ana from a breeder in Romania, receiving the dog at 4 months old. In all the photos from the breeder, Toni says, Ana had a toy in her mouth and had a paw raised as if she were waving. They brought Django from Greece around the same time.
“Ana and Django, neither one of them had an ugly stage,” Toni Donovan says. “A lot of dogs, they have to wait till they mature before they show them. They were always awesome from the time we got them. They were perfect.”
The couple entered Ana in her first competition in July of 2016, a dog show in West Palm Beach. The rookie placed all four days of the show. Since then, Ana has placed in all but a couple of contests, Toni says.
The couple has four fat scrapbooks filled with show programs, ribbons and other documentation of Ana’s success.
“From the very beginning, it’s like she was the winning dog of all of them,” Toni says. “My handlers never understood why I never got excited, but I never knew what it was like to lose.”
The Donovans use the experienced handler team of Dr. Jacqueline Royce and Donna Butler. Jeff Donovan knew Royce from his job at Manatee Memorial Hospital in Bradenton, where he works as a surgical technologist.
Django has been similarly successful, but the Donovans stopped showing him after he became severely ill at the AKC National Championship last December.
The handlers take Ana to all the major shows in Florida and some in Georgia. The Donovans aren’t able to attend all the competitions, but Toni prepares the bait the handlers use to direct Ana around the ring.
Toni did attend the AKC Nationals in Orlando, rising at 3 a.m. each day to make the drive.
When the Donovans opted to start showing Ana, Jeff set his hopes on seeing her appear at Westminster within five years. Dogs qualify for the show by rising in the national rankings through the results of regional shows, and Ana could have entered Westminster in her first year of showing but the Donovans weren’t prepared for the expense of the trip.
Ana entered Westminster in December and ranked sixth nationally among Bullmastiffs.
The handlers forbade the Donovans from sending Ana by plane, so the couple chauffeured the dog to New York City. On show day, Jeff was sick and unable to leave the hotel, but he was able to watch live TV coverage.
Toni Donovan sat in the audience, holding her cell phone and live-streaming video on Facebook. As friends sent her text messages, predicting Ana would win best of breed, Donovan got so nervous her hands shook, making for jarring video.
And then the results were announced, with Ana declared Best of Opposite Sex.
“I was grateful to God because it just seemed unfair to me that I could be there when so many people dreamed to go there for years, and I just walked from the bottom of the mountain to the top of the mountain overnight and it overwhelmed me,” Toni Donovan says.
“Took a helicopter,” Jeff adds.
