NEW YORK – While the real canines were cavorting across town at the annual Westminster Kennel Club show, a group of dog paintings, statues, fancy collars and other items fetched a total of $700,000 at an auction house.

Leading the way was the $66,000 paid for a 19th century John Emms oil painting of foxhounds and a terrier resting on a straw-covered bench. Two other paintings went for $57,000 each: One, titled “Winter Fireside,” was by Arthur Wardle; the other, “The First of October,” by James Hardy Jr., showed three hounds after a hunt.

Tuesday’s auction was the 26th sale of dog-related items by Bonhams, a company founded in London in 1793.

“We’re encouraged by the continuing strength in this market, a market we’ve made our own,” company spokesman Charles O’Brien said in a statement. “Several lots sold for spectacular prices.” The top-selling Emms painting and another Wardle work, which sold for $39,000, were within the presale estimates, but “Winter Fireside,” showing dogs near a fireplace, went for about four times its high estimate of $15,000.

Besides the paintings, the sales included a 19th century life-size cast-iron black retriever for $10,200, a Victorian sewing cabinet decorated with hand-painted dog heads for $9,000 and a William IV silver and leather collar once worn by a champion Blenheim spaniel, for $3,900. None of the buyers were identified in the statement.

Laid-off worker receives quarter million in lottery

BAD AXE, Mich. — Donald Ertman got a little agitated when he found out he’d have to make the 150-mile trip to Lansing to collect his lottery winnings. All that for $150, he complained.

Then the owner of the store that sold Ertman the $1 Mega Millions ticket set him straight: It was worth not $150, but a cool quarter of a million.

“I didn’t believe him – not at first,” Ertman told The Bay City Times.

The 71-year-old laid-off factory worker bought the ticket in late December at the Bad Axe Party Store & BP Gas Station, and walked around with it for six days without realizing it was worth $250,000.

He must have written down the numbers wrong when he saw them on TV, he said.

Ertman was speechless when store owner Eli Kabban told him what he really had, and his wife, Rosalie “Penny” Ertman, broke down in tears of joy when she learned the news.

“We’re the typical poor senior citizens, and our income from Social Security is not a lot,” she said.

he Ertmans, who live in Sanilac County’s Minden Township in Michigan’s Thumb, said they spend about $7 per week on lottery tickets. They remained anonymous until Monday.

The couple are investing the money, and Donald Ertman also said he plans to buy his wife a new car and spend some of the money making home improvements.

And yes, they bought a few tickets for Tuesday’s Mega Millions game, with an expected jackpot of $150 million.

“Now you see,” Donald Ertman said, “that’s worth a buck.”