Old-line investment bank Morgan Stanley prides itself on being "best in breed" when it comes to sophisticated financial services like merger advice and stock underwriting. Winning that distinction in the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show probably wasn't what it had in mind. But that's what happened last month when a four-year-old pooch named Scentasia's Hostile Takeover -- known affectionately as "Morgan" to owner Mark Hawley, a former Morgan Stanley executive -- was crowned the top otter hound at the renowned canine competition at New York's Madison Square Garden.

Hawley, a lifelong dog lover, ran the managed futures business at Dean Witter Discover when that firm merged with Morgan Stanley in 1997. Three years later he retired and bought his first otter hound, officially named Scentasia's Warrior Princess (Call me Xena). One year later Xena gave birth to four puppies: Morgan and her brothers Stanley, Dean and Witter.

"We called it the Wall Street litter," says Hawley, 61, whose group at Morgan Stanley placed the assets of high-net-worth clients with such futures fund managers as John Henry and Paul Tudor Jones. The litter's three males found other homes, but Hawley and his wife, Ann, fell in love with little Morgan and kept her. Since then she has become the winningest otter hound in the breed's history.

With the Westminster title under her collar (she also took second place in the hound group), Morgan is retiring from show life. But Hawley plans to breed her this spring and is already thinking about names for her pups. One possibility: famous hedge fund managers. Hawley has noticed over the years that more than a few of them use their middle names as monikers for their firms: Jones's Tudor Investments, Louis Bacon's Moore Capital and Kenneth Tropin's Graham Capital, for example. "I like hedge funds," says Hawley, "so maybe we'll use those middle names."