It's time for the annual Mayflower Dog Show; the owners are assembling for the big competition, and what a bizarre bunch they are. There's yuppie couple Meg (Parker Posey) and Hamilton (Michael Hitchcock), who are both concerned that their pooch has been disturbed by seeing them having sex; there's previous winner Sherri Ann Ward (Jennifer Coolidge), owner of the poodle Rhapsody in White, who this time has hired lesbian trainer Christy Cummings (Jane Lynch) to ensure a further victory; plus there's former maneater Cookie Fleck (Catherine O'Hara), her pet Winky, and her jealous husband Gerry (Eugene Levy); and not forgetting hunter, angler and bloodhound-fancier Harlan Pepper (Christopher Guest), a man whose passion for ventriloquism is going to land him in trouble sooner or later. The dogs are on show, the results eagerly awaited, but with characters like these, the outcome is anyone's guess.