The British Broadcasting Corporation may have caved in to pressure when it canceled the television coverage of the 2009 Crufts dog show — the first time in more than 40 years that Britons have not been able to watch their favorite dog show from their own sitting rooms — but that didn’t stop them covering the dog show on their news broadcasts and with articles and lots of photos on BBC online. In spite of the absence of television cameras, the show did indeed go on, and hordes of press converged on the event and covered, with its usual enthusiasm, what may truly be the world’s greatest dog show.
While locals couldn’t turn on their tellies to watch what was happening in Birmingham for four days last week, anyone could go online to the Kennel Club website to watch streaming video of the show. Some are left wondering if a Crufts without the BBC might have proven to be a boon rather than a bust, but I think in the long run those in charge will see the light and things will get back to normal.
So much of what’s happened recently in what seems like a war on purebred dogs appears to us unimaginable, and I hope that doubters are shaking the fog from their minds and beginning to realize that while of course we acknowledge that improvements are needed and can be made, there is nothing inherently evil about the purebred dog. Although missteps may be made here and there, in my opinion the Kennel Club is certainly attempting to take sensible steps to ensure the health and well being of the dogs under their jurisdiction, something I think our own governing body would be wise to do also. But the AKC has said that they are not the overseers of breed standards and such, and they continue to rely on the parent clubs to look after the welfare of their own.
We’ll have full coverage of Crufts 2009 in the next issue of Dogs in Review, but in the meantime we send congratulations to Margery Good, France Bergeron, Sandra Middlebrooks and everyone else involved with the inimitable Sealyham Terrier that has truly taken the world by storm. In winning the Crufts Best in Show award, ‘Charmin’ left his worthy competitor, England’s 2008 Number 1 dog of all breeds, the Standard Poodle Ch. Afterglow The Big Tease, to settle for reserve, which must make some folks nostalgic for the days when Crufts was a more “local” dog show. Indeed, as you’ll see next month, foreign dogs did quite well in Birmingham this year.