Crufts

On Friday 8th March i had the pleasure of going to Crufts for the Toy and Utility day courtesy of my lovely friend. Because she is a registered breeder she can get discounted tickets. It was a very long day for us both. We were up at a silly early hour to catch the 9am train and didn't get back until midnight.

The journey up there was so boring, i have never like trains for various reasons, one of them being the lack of control.I can't just stop and get out when i want, or come home when i want. Also suffering Migraines the idea of an attack on the train is terrifying. I digress...

Once in Birmingham its a hop off the train and few mins walk until we were in the NEC and could see the enormity of what is the worlds largest dog show. For more details about Crufts see http://www.crufts.org.uk/

Five, yes 5 huge halls full of stands, show rings, display rings, competition stands, you name it if its to do with dogs it can be found there. All round the outside of all the halls and in between the halls are food stalls. Again all you can think of can be found to eat.

Let me get to the dogs. We arrived just in time to see the judging of the Chihuahua puppy round judging. We didn't actually stay long as there were something like 24 puppy in the round, all of them to be walked round, then the favourites pulled out and then narrowed down to the final 4. It does get quite boring, but seeing the puppy's performing was amazing.

We also stood and watched the Golden retriever display team at work. Something spectacular, around 10 dogs and their handlers almost dancing in the ring to music. Ok they were walking around the ring, but it was in time to the music and they were making patterns and shapes. The dogs were left in certain places while the handlers walked away and around them. All the time the dogs were simple enjoying themselves. I've never even seen it on TV and my friend said it was even better in real life.

WE had lunch there which i can say was a disappointment, it was mass cooked and not that flavourful. I can however say i got an awful lot on the plate so they were generous there. If we had found them we would have chosen something like a jacket potato, but at the point when we were hungry we hadn't seen all the individual stands around the halls, only the big ones like Burger king and we didn't fancy those so i ended up with sweet and sour chicken and rice and my friend had pizza. By the time she's queued for drinks the food was cold too. They had one person serving and making latte type drinks with a queue reaching way back- more people were collecting cups and dishes than really needed.

Anyway back to the show. The shopping was amazing, i've never seen so many stalls offering so much stuff. Some of it really useful, others rubbish, some cheap other expensive. And then there was the normal rubbish food and treats and the really decent food.


There is so much i can say about it that i'm getting all muddled and because there is so much to say this post has taken me 3 days to write with gaps in between.

The outcome of the day was that my aim is to get Yoda qualified and showing there next Year. It will take hard work and lots of money but it will be so worth it.