Stubbylee Blog

Today was the first day of Crufts - the first Crufts under all the new KC initiatives.

On the showing side it was a good one for us with Zorro & Diva both winning their classes. Around the ring it was quite without a lot of spectators. A lot of the overseas visitors you get used to seeing and talking to year after year weren’t there; even some ringside seats were left vacant. The groups of Japanese girls snapping away at dogs left, right & centre were absent. But Thursday always seems to be a lot quiter than the remaining 3 days. perhaps because of this its unfair to judge any impact of the BBC programme and the withdrawl of Pedigree etc may have had. It was strange walking into Hall 3 without the massive Pedigree stand dominating the centre of the hall and the crowds queueing for free samples. Instead we had the KC stand trumpeting their health initiatives. The health message seems very dominant not just with the KC stand but also in the catalogue, announcements and the webcast commentary.

Generally the show seemed a lot more relaxed without the extensive BBC presence but there were lots of other KC backed press interviewing class & BIB winners and trying to portray a positive message. Certainly from our point of view it was good to speak to spectators putting across the real benefits of our breed. Whilst on the subject of the BBC it was interesting that on their breakfast TV & Radio coverage there seemed to be no mention at all of Crufts and perhaps significantly I didn’t hear any of the usual Day 1 news pieces pushing anti pedigree dog messages and providing yet another publicity platform for our detractors.

 When we go back on Sunday for Discover Dogs we’ll be able to have a better look around the show as a whole and get a far better feel for thee overall atmosphere.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 5th, 2009 at 10:44 pm and is filed under Dogs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.