It is hard to believe your eyes at first. A large white wig — Texan big hair,
blow-dried — appears to be moving at pace across the floor. Only when you
take a closer look do you realise that the wig has a face and is, in fact, a
small pekinese dog.
Not far away a packed crowd is enjoying a display of Scottish dancing from a
border collie.
In the press room, a golden retriever is barking an interview to a television
crew.
Welcome to the strange world of Crufts, which is not only the most prestigious
dog show known to man but is surely the largest gathering of expensive
British pedigree since the hereditary peers were turned out of the House of
Lords.
Oddly enough, it is not the dogs you notice first. It is the owners. They come
from all over the world these days but assume the dress and habits of the
locals. Imagine solid Middle England with a dog treat in every pocket and
you’ve got the general idea.
“It’s a different world,” said a stallholder as the crowds
hurried through the entrance, eager for artistic prints of dogs, dog
T-shirts, cuddly dinosaur dog toys, tools for crimping and blow-drying dogs
into show condition, and several ingenious devices for picking up dog poo.
“It’s like stepping back 15 to 20 years.”
And yet this year’s event, which concludes today at the National Exhibition
Centre in Birmingham, has seen the traditionalists getting a touch hot under
the collar.
The talk all week has been about an unprecedented run on the betting markets
for the prestigious Best in Show award. There has also been disquiet about
the new “dancing to heel” competition, which, with its music and flashing
lights, has inevitably been dubbed Strictly Come Barking. Some believe the
show has become too commercial with too much “razzmatazz”.
What on earth is happening to good old Crufts?
THE Kennel Club has been doing its best to modernise the event, which it took
over in 1942 from the family of Charles Cruft, the dog food salesman who ran
the first show in 1891. Last week the 21st century abruptly poked a wet nose
into the show’s groin.
On Wednesday, rumours of a very modern betting scam surfaced: bookmaker
William Hill announced that it would not be accepting any more bets on which
category of dog would provide the overall winner. The firm was reacting to a
sudden rush of money on the utility dog section, which includes bulldogs,
dalmatians and shih-tzus.
When odds shortened to 1-2 from 13-2, the bookies became suspicious. They were
also alarmed by talk of a mysterious “Superpoodle”.
Well, if Superpoodle did indeed exist, he or she was called out on a secret
mission at the crucial moment. The utility dog class was won by a Japanese
shiba inu called Tango, who will compete against other dogs in today’s grand
final, perhaps revealing her secret identity as Superpoodle at the last
minute.
Her owner, Janice Bannister, of Telford, Shropshire, said: “I never heard
anything about the betting. I think it would be virtually impossible for
anyone to predict who the Best in Show would be. They have to win best of
breed, then their category and then the grand final — and there are
different judges at each stage.”
The rumour seems to have done no harm to the show’s prestige. It might have
even lent a raffish touch to the occasion.
As if that were not enough excitement for one year, Crufts also found itself
under attack on the most unlikely of grounds. The Kennel Club, say critics,
has been trying to make the show just too damned entertaining.
There is a clash of cultures between the traditional exhibitors, competing to
see who has the most perfect example of
the 183 different breeds on show, and the new pack of dog owners who enjoy
training their dogs in feats of agility.
The criticism is more growling and tugging at the lead than going for the
throat. But its main target is the Heelwork to Music event in which owners
in sparkly costumes perform dance routines with their dogs.
This is the big television crowd-pleaser for Crufts. In true X Factor spirit,
the show’s main auditorium was packed with a partisan audience for the final
on Friday. When Nicky Joyce and Dazzle the sheep dog were placed second
after dancing a pulsating Latin quickstep to Enrique Iglesias, the crowd
booed.
This being Crufts, not every contestant had such a contemporary soundtrack.
One finalist chose to perform to the theme tune from Pot Black, a BBC2
programme that was last popular in the 1970s. A rival chose a march from the
band of the Royal Tank Regiment.
Yet noses have been put out of joint and they don’t just belong to the pugs.
“It’s as if the breed people just want Crufts to be breeding competitions, but
that’s not what the public wants,” said Dave Ray, who founded the concept of
Heelwork to Music with his wife, Mary, in the early 1990s.
The critics say it is evidence that Crufts is becoming too flash and — horror
of horrors — too successful.
“The breeds are what the show is for,” said Shirley Riley, from Norwich, who
shows her red setter. “Events like Heelwork to Music were never the central
part of Crufts, but now they’ve put them centre stage to pay the bills.”
Joe Watkin, an exhibitor from Lincolnshire, says the show is much changed
since his red setter, Starlite Express, won Best in Show in 1988.
“It’s been turned into big business,” he said. “It’s definitely more
commercial, with more publicity and razzmatazz. All those flashing lights in
the arena. I don’t know who has benefited, certainly not the exhibitors.”
For many in the arena, the new, flashy side of Crufts is pandering to foreign,
and particularly American, tastes. Dogs from overseas have won four of the
seven events since they were allowed to enter following the relaxation of
Britain’s quarantine laws in 2001. This year foreign dogs account for 1,165
of the 23,000 competitors.
Although the Americans have been the source of only one of those champion dogs
— Take a Chance, an australian shepherd, who won in 2006 — they have come in
for particular criticism.
“The way the Americans present their dogs is very different,” said Watkin.
“They make their dogs look very glamorous — they go over the top.”
Back-combed, bouffant hair and diamanté accessories are de rigueur for
competitors from across the pond.
Others complain about the Americans’ use of professional dog handlers.
“British owners handle the dogs and they are a pet first and
foremost,” said one outraged exhibitor.
At this point it should be noted that last year’s winner, tibetan terrier
Fabulous Willy, was owned by two men from Gloucester but shown to the judges
by American handler Larry Cornelius.
Nevertheless the foreign successes have upset some locals, and encouraged
conspiracy theories about increasing the number of non-UK dogs.
The show, which sprawls over 20 acres and has 150,000 visitors, is now so
lucrative that the Kennel Club and its suppoers defend its reputation like
rottweilers on a choke chain. Just ask Paul Keevil.
As press officer of the British and Irish Dog Breeds Preservation Trust he
recently joined the chorus of criticism of Crufts. “The show is becoming far
too theatrical,” he said. “Some of the dogs now reflect that kind of North
American glamour that you see in Hollywood starlets.”
Shortly after his remarks, a terse message on the trust’s website announced
that Keevil was no longer connected with the trust.
Dogs Today magazine has also been tapped sharply on the nose with a rolled-up
newspaper. Last year it published a guide called The Little Black Dog Book,
which warned about hereditary problems in pedigree dogs. The magazine’s
editor, Beverley Cuddy, described the breeding of pedigree dogs — a pastime
in which the Kennel Club is something of a specialist — as “a genetic
timebomb”.
This year Dogs Today was told that its journalists would not be allowed
official accreditation at Crufts. Whoever thought the world of the dog show
could be so fierce?
“They won’t tell me why we’re banned,” said Cuddy, although it might well have
something to do with a headline that screamed “Stop breeding ignorance —
reform the Kennel Club now!”
“They have totally cut us off,” she said. “I am very upset that we’re
excluded from the show.”
IT’S a pity, because they have missed a treat. This really is the United
Nations of the dog world. There are dogs that look like explosions in a
cottonwool factory, and dogs that look like Paris Hilton’s pixie boots.
There are dogs that stand shoulder high to their owners, and dogs you could
slip into your pocket. There are dogs that bound into their owners’ arms in
the heady excitement of jumping a clear round, and dogs that doze gently in
their pens with their owners doing the same beside them.
Of course, you can have too much of a good thing, as one commentator proved
when a noisy terrier was making its presence felt during an agility
competition. “Yip, yip, bloody, yip,” said the commentator. “Oh dear,
perhaps I shouldn’t have said that?”
