There’s the Emmys, the Grammys, the Webbies…and now we have the Humpys.

Welcome, my friends, to the newest form of canine-competition. The Humpy Awards is a leg-humping contest which celebrates natural dog behaviour; the participants judged on their speed, style, stamina, mount and dismount. This is essentially Crufts for horny dogs.

While there was certainly some stiff competition, the winner of the event displayed below was a Jack-Russell terrier named Miss Hope; who I’m hoping didn’t ruin her owner’s trousers.

[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhzckFB1NyY’]

If you managed to watch the whole 2 minutes and 41 seconds of canine hypersexuality (you know you loved every second of it though), you will notice a logo at the end reading Small Town Security. The reason for this is that, just like last week’s Underwater Nightclub video; The Humpy Awards is a clever marketing ploy to advertise with a viral video. That’s right, AMC is launching a new TV show called Small Town Security that will air following Breaking Bad on Sunday nights in the USA; and those super-smart marketing guys decided the best way to get the word out was to invent a leg-humping contest.

This whole viral video marketing thing is kicking off, and since The Humpy Awards was uploaded a week ago it has fielded over 180,000 hits on YouTube (OK that’s not quite Phony 2012 territory, but we’re talking dogs humping legs here…as opposed to child soldiers and calls for war in Uganda).

Wikipedia describes AMC’s new show Small Town Security as an unscripted series which focuses on a small, family-owned, private security company called JJK Security; located in rural Georgia. I really don’t see how this can logically connect to dogs humping legs, but while The Humpy Awards may not be a real competition, AMC certainly wins 1st prize for the weirdest and most innovative video I have seen this week.