Crufts 2010
I don’t even know where to start! I’d always said I’d love to do the whole four days and it was definitely worth it, but I’m not sure I could do it again for at least another 5 years!
Got up very early for the trip down on Thursday morning. Andrea and Buffy (Bethlyntee Rhythm and Blues at MoBuff) were in the Bearded Collie Veteran Bitch class, and I hitched a lift down with them – thanks Andrea! Over in the Border Collie rings, Sarah and Skye (Melneg Golden Embers) were also showing, in Graduate Bitch, and Vicki and Inca (Locheil Miss Independent at Ruffs) were in Post-Graduate Bitch, and Vicki also had Diesel (Bryning Don’t Stop Me Now at Ruffs) in the Yearling Dog (and GC Dog). So we spent a while in Hall 1! We had a mixed set of results, with some very good ones; Skye won her class, to the very emotional response of all, and Vicki and Diesel came 4th in GC Dog. I love seeing working dogs getting placed, it restores my faith in breed judging!
We stayed in a mildly weird B&B in Solihull, but then again I’m not sure I’ve ever stayed in a B&B that wasn’t mildly weird. We found a cheerful and cheap pub down the road to eat at, which was actually pretty delicious, and it all worked out really well! We only stayed for the Group Judging on Thursday night, and then left before the end on Friday and Saturday.
Just so no-one thinks that I neglected the breed showing, we’d promised ourselves that if we ever went for four days, we’d watch some of the breed showing from beginning to end (ie. from the Puppy classes through to Best of Breed). Since we chose to do this on Friday, we limited it to the Hound Group, and then picked the Ibizan Hounds from the selection as they only had a small entry and we liked the look of them. We did go and visit them on Discover Dogs as well, so we knew what we were looking for!
Final day was Gundog day, and it was soo busy! We bumped into even more people we knew, notably a few more flyball dogs in the breed ring with Kerry and Kia (Raycris New Trix) in the Large Munsterlander Post-Graduate Bitch, where they came 3rd. Again, I love seeing working dogs getting placed in the show ring! Makes me very happy. We also managed to squeeze in 10minutes in the Obedience arena, watched a lovely black Labrador representing the USA in the World Cup, and then squeezed back out again and collapsed somewhere. (As an aside, I was really really thrilled to see the gorgeous Amberslade Aussie take the Obedience Dog CC, what a stunner!)
I think we managed to do everything. I’m not really sure how I normally do all of this in a day! We only had a quick wander around Discover Dogs, had a quick look-in at the YKC and Good Citizen’s ring, and only just managed to catch some of the Obedience. We did get to spend time watching the agility and flyball though, and we just spent time comparing and shopping as much as we liked, which was nice!
Generally though, I just managed to spend a small fortune over the four days; picked up some vetbed, some toys for the dogs, a few other bits and peices like the Yumove supplement that Katie has been raving about for months! (More on the Yumove later, I think; suffice to say the guys on the Lintbells stall really knew their stuff). Also spent rather a lot on treats, so the dogs will be well fed for the next 6 months! I know they like the Fish4Dogs stuff, so they got quite a lot of that, and we also spent a while chatting to the FarmFood guys; they sponsor the Doncaster flyball team, and so we see their stall at flyball shows quite often. The Cows Ears went down well yesterday, anyway!
Seperate posts on Flyball at Crufts and Agility at Crufts coming up …