Meet Queen Adonika and King Big Mac, top dogs of the St. Paul Winter Carnival and Doggie Depot

The votes have been tabulated and St. Paul has two new top dogs:

Meet Queen Adonika and King Big Mac, the newly named canine royalty of the 2024 St. Paul Winter Carnival and Doggie Depot, an upcoming dog-friendly event at Union Depot.

Adonika, a 2-year-old Pomsky (half Pomeranian, half Siberian Husky) from Minnetonka, received 515 votes among the 79 queen nominees in an online competition that ended on Sunday.

Big Mac, a 2-year-old French Bulldog from Minneapolis, fetched 287 votes among the 140 king nominees.

As the canine versions of Aurora, Queen of the Snows and Boreas, King of the Winds, the two winners of Doggie Depot’s contest will walk in the King Boreas Grande Day Parade at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 27 and will be officially crowned by their human counterparts at Doggie Depot, a free event at Union Depot at 11 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 3.

While Adonika lives in the west metro, her owner, Ryn Melberg, attended Hamline University in St. Paul for both undergraduate and graduate studies and is thus quite familiar with St. Paul and our festival.

“I’m no usurper,” Melberg says with a laugh.

Melberg said she learned of this contest via her Instagram feed and thought of her winter-loving, people-loving dog.

“I thought this was something she would really enjoy,” Melberg says of a winter reign.

Thanks to a social media boost provided by the community at WeRateDogs, Adonika got votes from as far away as Australia.

Big Mac, also a social dog who was a pandemic-era puppy, can thank some of his 14,800+ followers on Instagram for helping secure this win; it was the second year he entered.

“A lot of his followers were voting every day,” says Big Mac’s “momager,” Jeena Devi Arnachellum, who is familiar with St. Paul because she used to work on this side of the river.

(You can follow Big Mac at Instagram.com/macallan.kingfrenchie.)

Mac is reportedly excited, but not that excited, about his upcoming reign.

“After I found out he won, I woke him up from his nap to congratulate him and give him a treat,” Devi Arnachellum says. ” He was very excited for his treat, but after I hugged him, he went back to sleep.”

Doggie Depot

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  • What: A free, dog-friendly event featuring more than 55 vendors and rescues. Visitors to Doggie Depot are encouraged to bring their four-legged friends.
  • When: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 3 (with a dog yoga session starting at 9 a.m. and the dog coronation at 11 a.m.). KS95’s Staci Matthews is set to emcee throughout the day.
  • Where: Union Depot, 214 Fourth St. E., St. Paul
  • Info: uniondepot.org/doggiedepot