Exclusive: and the reason the Neo failed was....

Really, no one can argue with that. The vet clearly made the right decision.

And here is the owner's moment - rather short-lived - of victory.

Neo fails... but not the GSD

In not the greatest surprise of Crufts 2012, the Best of Breed Neapolitan Mastiff (the Bitch CC Lux/Slo Ch Ithani - from Belgium) has also failed her vet check... I am told by those ringside that she has only "mild ectropion", but that may not be the reason for her DQ.  We may get some pictures so hopefully we'll be able to have a closer look later.

But German Shepherd, Elmo von Huhnegrab, who has won Best of Breed, has passed his vet check.

Here are some pix of him at last Birmingham City Champ Show. He also won not just the BOB but the Group at last year's Cruft's. He looks OK on the move and this dog is better than many. But....

And now the Mastiff...

... has failed the Best of Breed vet check.

The not-winner is a bitch called Ch Secret Charm Avec Dibest, owned by Mrs D Yemm. The judge was Mrs S Windham from Ireland.

This bitch won Best of Breed at Crufts in 2010 and there is a pic of her here.


My guess, again, would be that the problem is ectropion, as I don't think they had a category for "have turned this once much more athletic breed into a hulking brute."

Here's an example from 1936.

So now let's see what happens with the Neapolitan Mastiff... an announcement imminent.

Interview with owner of the DQ'd Clumber

Hat-tip to Chrissy Smith and Dog World for this exclusive interview... although suspect by the owner's aggrieved reaction that it will be the first of many:

Clumber also fails vet check

The Danish-born Clumber Chervood's Snowsun (above) has just failed her vet-check at Crufts on Day 2 of the 2012 competition.

The five-year-old bitch - which has great health test results (A/A hips, 0/0 elbows, no patella problems, a Clear eye certificate and DNA tested clear of PDP1) is one of the most decorated Clumbers of all time (in fact taking the Bitch CC at Crufts 2010).  She also has some hunting qualificiations. Now she's not much like the working-bred Clumbers that can still be found working on some shoots in the UK - but at least her owners have made some effort and she's not the heffalump that some of the Clumbers are.

Above, Chervood Snowsun and, below, a working Clumber

I am guessing that ectropion is the reason for the disqualification. It is endemic in the show version of the breed (and in truth the workers are not immune either, although on the whole are better).  Here's a pic of the dog that won Best of Breed at Richmond Champ Show last summer. I hate to see dogs with eyes like this - especially on a gundog - and there are way too many of them, in too many breeds, in the show-ring.  One less of them today, I guess (assuming the DQ was for ectropion).

Chervood's Snowsun was being shown today by the Big Booms Kennel from Croatia, who I suspect may soon be changing the first page of their website.

"Crufts", it says, "the show where dreams come true."

Well done to the Kennel Club - I think

Ch Mellowmood One in A Million ("Jenny")... Best of Breed at Crufts 2012... not.

I don't write that headline very often. But all praise to the KC for having the cojones to appoint independent vets to check the Best of Breed winner of 15 highlighted breeds at Crufts, which started yesterday.

I was deeply sceptical about the superficial nature of these but yesterday both the Best of Breed Bulldog and Peke had their awards rescinded and did not go through to the Group. For some bonkers reason, the KC is not revealing why - although an anon comment just received to the blog maintains that the Bulldog was removed from further competition because "the vet pulled her eye about with a torch, found a tiny mark on the eye which he described as an old injury, not health issue, nothing wrong with the eye... you decide health or politics !!"

There is also already a Facebook site - Team Jenny Forever - claiming the dog was wrongfully stripped of her title. It is being claimed there that the dog has a current eye certificate and that it was politics that won the day.

This will sound plausible to the conspiracy theorists - and indeed my other half Jon raised a rather sceptical eyebrow when he heard the news, wondering if it was possible that the KC had made sacrifical lambs of the Bulldog and Peke to show the world how seriously they are taking health. (After all, many claim there was an orchestrated exchange regarding GSDs between the KC's Caroline Kisko and presenter Clare Balding in the 2010 TV coverage of Crufts).  But I'm minded to give the KC credit on this one (although, as ever, always open to new info...)  No vet I know would pull a dog for an old eye injury.

The Bulldog is Ch Mellowmood One in A Million and she's a big previous winner. The pictures of her here were taken yesterday and they show a Bulldog that, by Bulldog standards, isn't particularly exaggerated. (There were certainly far worse dogs in the ring today). I do think she looks a little anxious and/or uncomfortable  - over and above what's normal for a Bulldog that is - and that might be the sign of,  perhaps, an aggravating eye problem. But of course it's hard to tell from still pictures.

I have no inside info on the Pekingese, Palacegarden Bianca. But I was mildly amused to see that the judge was Bert Easdon. Who he? He is the owner of Danny the Peke, the 2003 Crufts winner that featured in Pedigree Dogs Exposed in 2008, essentially on account of having been photographed on an icepack in order to keep cool (another flat-faced breed in which we've selectively bred away the part of the nose that regulates temperature). We also revealed that Danny had undergone a soft palate resection before being crowned Supreme Champion at Crufts in 2003 - something Mr Easdon still denies, insisting that the dog had some minor op because of a recurrent throat infection. (We have no need to argue this - I have a copy of the veterinary diagnosis from Glasgow Vet School).

Again, we don't know why Palacegarden Bianca was excluded, so we will have to hold our horses until we find out.

In meantime, the news is not going down very well on t'other side of the Pond with this dog show blogger... Crufts' Campaign Against the Purebred Dog. Thank you to Peke breeder Susan Shepherd for giving me the biggest laugh of the day (see the comments on the above link): "This is by far the most disgusting thing I have ever seen in purebred dogs," she wrote. What, you mean breeding Pekes so they gasp for breath like guppies out of water? No, of course not.  The most disgusting thing she has ever seen in purebred dogs is disqualifying a dog for health reasons.

Boy is this one going to run and run.

I got the news about the Bulldog and Peke on my iPhone at 5.35pm while walking nine dogs on Salisbury Plain. 

The internet connection there is atrociously slow, so I knew I'd have to wait until I got home to blog.  And then one of the dogs - Luka - decided to go AWOL. Luka is 12 or so years old now - a rescue retriever/collie x who came from Dundalk in Ireland about six years ago - and he has always been an Irish wild rover. He's much slower now, on Previcox for arthritis (a miracle drug...), and he's increasingly deaf, but he still does his own thing on walks - pretty much seeing us as a chauffeur service to and from the outdoor venue of his choice. He knows the Plain like the back of his paw and so it's never a worry. I just headed back to the car; loaded up the others and waited while catching up with email and a few phone calls. One hour passed and then, before I knew it, another. The sun set and the moon rose.  Eventually Jon came down with a torch and set off across the Plain looking for the old fella (Luka is his dog). And silly me left the lights on on my car without starting the engine. When Jon re-appeared with Luka ("oh, is that the time?")  half an hour later, the battery was completely flat.

Long story short, we got home at 11pm. Dogs and us now fed and Jon's in bed asleep, it's 3am and I haven't taken my coat off yet.

This is Luka. The other dogs all hang on my every word, but not Luka. He worships the ground Jon walks on. Always has. Always will.

I am a tumour. Lump it or like it.

Over at the Stop the BBC Making Another PDE Facebook site (time for a new name, no?), there has been a bit of a spat today between the Group's leader, Mike Davidsohn, and poodle breeder Susan Horsfall over where the group goes now.

Ms Horsfall appears content to call it a day, saying that the fact that the film hasn't had much publicity and the fact that it was relegated to BBC Four must be due to their successful campaigning.

Mr Davidsohn, however, likens me to a tumour and wants me "cut out", claiming further that he's had lots of "PMs and emails" from others demanding this kind of satisfaction.

Ms Horsfall has recoiled rather from this overt display of Mr Davidsohn's vendetta against me and has said she wants no part of it. For which I thank her. 

Truth is, I suspect, that the campaign has made Mr Davidsohn feel rather important (they wrote to the Queen you know and seemed inordinately pleased with what was an entirely stock reply) and now... well, I guess it's back to being a taxi driver and small-time poodle breeder and exhibitor.

It is true, incidentally, that the film hasn't had as much publicity as the first one (although there were features in most of the Sunday newspapers the day before transmission).  But, really, it was never going to be the big news that Pedigree Dogs Exposed was in 2008 - sequels rarely are. And, yep, it was shown on BBC Four, rather than the heady heights of BBC One this time, meaning a much smaller audience. But that was nothing to do with any campaign. It was because the original film was commisisoned by the BBC's Richard Klein when he was a Commissioning Editor across all BBC Channels and now he's Controller of BBC Four. He wanted the sequel for his own Channel and of course I agreed. It was his faith in the project that ensured Pedigree Dogs Exposed got made in 2008.

The good news is that the most numerous complaint about the programme so far has been from viewers saying the film should have aired on BBC One. So who knows.... it may yet air to a bigger UK audience.. And we deliver the international version of the film next week.

And one more thing, Mr Davidsohn. It has been pointed out several times that you are mixing up Professor James Serpell with Professor Steve Jones and you did it again today by claiming that James Serpell was in the sequel. He wasn't. That was Steve Jones. Look him up. He's quite important in the scientific scheme of things. But it is true he has never bred a dog.

And, again, I have no links with HSUS or PETA, other than speaking at a conference last year co-sponsored by HSUS, alongside many others who could not in a million years be accused of having "links with HSUS", such as representatives of the American Kennel Club.