I'm going on the Saturday with a friend who's wanting to get her first dog but isn't sure yet which breed - so we'll be spending a lot of time in Discover Dogs talking to people to find out the pros and cons of the different breeds. I'll also look in on the obedience, visit Cavalier Matters, watch some of the demonstrations that go on all day. Fortunately I am immune to shopping at Crufts - you could spend a fortune! But my two have got beds, crates, leads, dumbells, food that suits them and a box of toys they never play with and do NOT need anything else!
I was trying to remember when I first went to Crufts - I think I was about 12, when it was at Olympia in London - that would be around 1953! I was already keen on dogs, and can remember the Cocker Spaniel, Tracey Witch of Ware, winning BIS, and the wonderful Border Collie Megan of Monksmead winning the Obedience. Before you needed to qualify your dog in order to enter, I even showed my own Golden Retriever there once. And when I was a teenager I used to buy old pre-war copies of the Our Dogs and Dog World Annuals, to get photos of old Goldies to illustrate my pedigrees - I was a pedigree nut even then! The annuals often had a page of photos of the Pargeter Cavaliers - I noticed them because of the name, which is the surname of my mother's side of the family - pity I didn't keep them.
Kate, Oliver and Aled