Maintaining the Standard by Sheila Atter
Hopefully now that Crufts is over, most of the critiques have been printed, the judges’ opinions considered, criticised, applauded, the gossip and scandal is beginning to receive less attention and we can get on with our hobby in a more relaxed...
There are times when I really, really want to knock heads together at the Kennel Club! They have just introduced what is perhaps the most important initiative for many years – not to a fanfare and lots of self-satisfied backslapping...
Well it’s all over bar the shouting, and I’m sure that there are quite a lot of us that are heaving a bit of a sigh of relief that we can just get on with the normal round of training, feeding, exercising, grooming, mating, rearing puppies...
Trying to write a column that will be published the week after Crufts some ten days before the event has taken place is always very difficult. Who knows what will happen?
Crufts! It’s the one dog show that everyone has heard of. In fact, it’s the only dog show that most people have heard of. Go to any country in the world, and where there are dog shows there are people who will tell you that their ambition is to...
With Crufts on the horizon, it is inevitable that anything with a canine connection will become news. Top of the list, inevitably at the moment, is the trade in illegally imported puppies, mainly from Eastern Europe.
A WEEK on, and more time to reflect on the new Kennel Club proposals with regard to all-breed championship shows means that the larger KC plan is beginning to make sense.
The news that from 2019 there will be six extra all-breed championship shows has been a not very well kept secret for quite sometime. All we were waiting for was news of exactly which shows would be elevated to such status.
MANY commentators have discussed the problems facing the show world at present, in particular the necessity for attracting new exhibitors – and more importantly keeping those who do come along and make a start in breed competition.
I MAKE no apologies for returning once again to the subject of the popularity of unrecognised colours. It is a topic that is of great concern to many, and emails come into my inbox on a regular basis from those who are feeling helpless about the...
Three huge cheers for the Kennel Club and in particular the Show Executive Sub-Committee! Faced with a proposal sent in by the Papillon Breed Council via the KC Breeds Liaison Council, that the definition of the Good Citizen Dog Scheme...
Last weekend I went to Boston, the first championship show of the year. It is always one of my favourite shows, the start of the new season, the beginning of a fresh campaign, the revival of hopes and full of expectations.
Did you see the photos in Dog World the other week of the top three breeders’ groups in Finland for 2015? I thought it was a very nice touch that the photos included all the members that had competed for each team throughout the year, not just a...
Until the last year or two the period between Christmas and New Year would have seen me, and many others who live in the East Midlands, out at open shows almost every day. Newark Showground heaved with people and dogs and some dedicated folk even...
A New Year! New beginnings, a fresh start…. This is a time when traditionally we look back at the past 12 months and resolve to do things differently in the future. Whether we have hopes for a successful show campaign with that promising puppy...
HE LAY in a corner of the kennel, bewildered and frightened. He’d tried so hard to be liked, but it seemed that everything he did had been wrong. He could vaguely remember his mum and his brothers and sisters...
In the ‘good old days’ it used to be so simple. A bitch came in season, a dog mated her, and nine weeks later she whelped a litter. Am I looking backwards through rose-tinted spectacles?
Who are the people who work the hardest and are the least appreciated of all those who are involved with the dog show world?
A recent poll on the Dog World website asked for opinions on the idea of the Kennel Club setting up a new register for crossbred dogs. Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that there was an overwhelming majority against the idea...
