It’s not all eugenics, eugenics, eugenics: Crufts welcomes the Europeans

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/mar/06/crufts-welcomes-europeans-zoe-williams

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A woman named Lucy Creek, dressed as Sherlock Holmes in a tweed seersucker of what I have to guess was homemade provenance (I’ve never seen anything like it in a shop), arrived in the centre Arena of the NEC, dancing with her dog. They don’t call it dancing. They call it Freestyle Heel Work to Music.

The dog, Harriot Skiffle King (“he’s always smiling, and would work all day if you let him”, the judge read approvingly) danced backwards round a lamppost, then mimed urinating on it without actually producing any urine (for which he would have been penalised).

For effort, for surrealism, for pushing at the very limits of the verbs a dog will understand, it was incredible: but I was struck, as I am every year at Crufts (you may not realise that I am this newspaper’s Crufts correspondent), by its quintessential Britishness; from the elaborate adoration of dogs in the first place, to the flasks of tea, the biscuits, the polyester, the patience, the whole lot is more culturally evocative to me than a sandwich made of cheese, pickle and Henry VIII.

One might imagine, then, a certain cultural protectionism – so that if, by a combination of international standing and the steady expansion of the pet passport, a load of people were suddenly to enter Crufts who were not British, the incumbents might mind. But that’s not what’s going on at all.

In the golden retriever class, 33-year-old Paloma Lopez tells me, “if there are 400 retrievers here, there are 60 to 80 from Europe alone. Other breeds, maybe they are not brave enough to come and compete with the English people, the fathers of the breed.” (The owners, I have to assume, not the dogs themselves).

She, along with her husband Antonio, run the top kennel in Spain, known for its great burly dogs, “of good construction. Good character, of course, but we like solid dogs, sound dogs. I don’t want a beautiful dog if it cannot move correctly. In the US, there are more show retrievers, but they don’t have the characteristics that the breed was created for.”

They have already known considerable Crufts success; Rain, their younger dog, won in the yearling class two years ago, while his father, Dusty, was a champion. There is no resentment from their competitors.

“The average age of the European breeders is maybe 30 years old. The average age of British breeders is maybe 60. Crufts is special for that, because we learn so much from them. We have so much respect for them.”

You may not realise what a gigantic deal Crufts is, internationally. Elvira Kloek, 47, from the Netherlands, said: “I’ve been here years ago, when to get your dog from the continent to England was impossible. Pet passports have been like a dream come true.”

“I don’t think it’s a bad thing,” said Fiona Smithies, 57, about the new internationalism. “Why should it be a bad thing? As a matter of fact, I’ve actually got a foreign dog, at home. I bought her from a breeder in Serbia … the bloodlines I wanted to go back to, I couldn’t get them in England.” The breeders brought the puppy over, who couldn’t come in until she was eight months old.

“If this isn’t an impertinent question,” I started, “how much did that cost?”

“I spent £1,000. It’s a lottery, you get ugly duckling syndrome, but she’s wonderful. And her puppies are better than she is.”

Patrick Morriss, 56, remarks: “One good thing about all the European dogs coming here is that the gene pool is much wider. And if you took all the European dogs out, now, this event would be a lot smaller. That influence is driving the popularity.”

It’s not all eugenics, eugenics, eugenics. Romek Kosenkranius, 45, and Anti Leedu, 46, drove 2,500 miles, from Estonia, to show their dogs, but do not seem too worried about placing.

“It’s a big hobby. Some people are drinking. Some people are doing sports. We are being with our dogs,” Anti said. Romek, to make sure I spelled his name correctly, handed me his card. He’s the deputy mayor of Pärnu linnavalitsus.

“It’s a very small place,” he said, modestly. “Only a few thousand people.” It would have been quicker to fly but “we love our dogs too much”.

“You can’t say the winning doesn’t matter,” Amanda Kirkman, 43, explained. “The fact that somebody else has a high opinion of your dog, you’re very proud of that. But when you go into the ring, it’s just you and them. They want to please you so much. It’s special time between the two of you.”

It is impossible, as a dog-lover and, I posit, even as a non-lover of dogs, to be racist about them, to care what country they come from – in the absence of which consideration, all the benefits of cross-fertilisation come flooding out. The respect, the learning, the gene pool, the liveliness, the whole lot. The immigration debate could learn a lot from the spirit of Crufts.