Cruft's, the world's largest dog show, has come and gone again. This time a six year-old Norfolk Terrier by the name of "CoCo" won Best in Show, besting a Chihuahua named Astro, a beagle named Harry, a Belgian Shepherd named India, a Japanese Shiba Inu named Marnie, a giant Schnauzer named Phil, and an English Setter named Rosco.
By what nonsense criteria do judges ajudicate these things?
Nothing has ruined the terrier world more than dog shows, and Crufts is a perfect example. Charles Cruft was a dog food salesman who never even owned a dog himself.
For Cruft the shows were all about money, never mind that they bestowed silly importance to stupid things, and that closed registries narrowed the gene pools of dogs so that breeds ended up with all the intellectual and physical vigor of the Hapsburg Empire.
Cruft began his show ring escapes by taking over the Allied Terrier Club Show in 1886. This show was quickly followed by others, with every year a new new "ancient breed," being created and "discovered" and given some trumped-up provenance. To read more, see >> here
The Westminister Kennel Club Show, the largest dog show on this side of the Atlantic, did much the same, ruining fox terriers with the speed of a War Powers Act. To read this sad history, see >> here
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