Violence, forgery, cheating, in Dogdom It’s enough to make a cat laugh ...

Press, 24 August 1976, Page 17

Violence, forgery, cheating, in Dogdom It’s enough to make a cat laugh ...

The world of dog breeding and showing in England has become highly competitive. Indeed, it is much more—a savage dog’s life for those who can still recall this most discreet of English pastimes. PETER DUNN, of the London “Sunday Times,” reports.

The dog world has a familiar and cosy look. It is dominated by gentlemen of military rank — the Kennel Club will not admit women as members — but the ladies of Dogdom outnumber the men by four to one. In rapturous letters to “Dog World” or “Our Dogs,” they discuss their pets as though they were human. “Champion Gay Lad,” says a Peke owner’s advert in an issue of “Dog World,” “congratulates his children on all their wins.”

It has heroes, too, like the and late Miss H. M. Loughrey, a judge of Deerhounds who died last December. Miss Loughrey never called anyone by their first name. She refused to fly in aeroplanes and held her Mat in place with sisal when judging on windy days. She was much admired for her fierce integrity, and sadly missed; for obituaries imply that she represented an era which is now gone for good. Dogs — and owners — are proliferating as never before. The Kennel Club licenses 2400 dog shows each year. Every working day, more than 750 new dog registrations are lodged at its West End headquarters. And the profit, too, is growing for the smart breeders pushing their way forcefully into a business which offers glory and wealth to a few — and penny-pinching years for the many. Along with an avarice which the old guard detest has come violence, disputes and suspicions, infecting the quarreling ranks of some of Britain’s largest dog clubs. Hardly a week passes without stories of leashwhippings, torn-up award cards, of obscenities springing impetuously to the iips of gentlefolk whose dogs have been badly placed in the show ring.

The politics of coup d’etat now characterise many dog club committees. Dick Beauchamp, editor of “The American Bullmastiff,” warns that anyone with a skeleton in their closet should stay out of breed club powerstruggles “because the other group will drag them out and put them on display for the whole world to see.”

Pessimism is widespread — and justified. “One begins to wonder how far we are slipping,” wrote F. Warner Hill, a veteran columnist in “Dog World” earlier this year. “Very early in the slide a man and a woman were fighting each other outside a dog ring with dog leads. They were reported by competitors in a neighbouring ring, partly for the noise created. The incident lapsed, it is understood, through weakness of the evidence.”

The image of poodles, bull terriers, even the diminutive Yorkshire terrier — one of the most

popular and profitable breeds today — have all suffered through the activities of their owners snapping at each other’s throats. These are the details of Dogdom’s current conflicts:

In the poodle business, a vituperative wrangle has been going on for months over the dyeing of fur, usually to hide disfiguring white hairs on black dogs. The issue is still a murky one since an inconclusive Kennel Club investigation into accusations that a number of standard poodles (the big ones) were “improperly prepared” at the 1976 Cruft’s Dog Show. "It goes on. Got! knows,” say Mrs Elizabeth Sillitoe, a poodle judge. “But it’s not only in poodles who tend to get picked on because thev are regarded as a sort of performing dog. There have been things said about dyeing a Skye terriers’ ears and boot-black-ing used on Airedales. God knows what they do with it.”

111-feeling still simmers throughout the breed despite a leader ’n “Dog World” headlined “Stop the Rot — Now.” In a year which sees the centenary celebrations of the Poodle Club, the leader said; “The whole boiling pot of intrigue, innuendo and chicanery has burst open. . . The talk is of hate, mistrust, of anger, spite, envy and every soft of imaginable malpractice.”

The intensity with which passions blaze in the breasts of some poodle

owners was aptly demonstrated at the Kennel Club’s hearing — under its disciplinary Rule 17 — of a case involving Mrs Sillitoe and a Manchester bar-tender and poodle breeder, Cecil Walley. Mr Walley was alleged during the hearing to have objected to Mrs Sillitoe placing his dog second to another champion. Mrs Sillitoe claimed during the hearing that Mr Walley said to her “You bugger, I’ll get you. I’ve got a long memory. I needed that ‘Best in Show.’ I’ve no money. How the hell am I going to get home now?”

Mr Walley, who denied using bad language to Mrs Sillitoe, was banned by the Kennel Club from showing for a year. But recent events in the bull terrier world made even the more strenuous activities of some poodle people pale. With nearly 700 members, the Southern Counties Staffordshire Bull Terrier Society has for years been one of the country’s most respected clubs. But in March this year, after the society’s annual general meeting, two members required hospital treatment following a fracas in which one of them received head wounds from a flailing beer mug and the other almost severed his thumb on broken glass. Alfred “Nap” Cairns,

now 72 and a former secretary of the club for 25 years, says that the fight started over an earlier argument at the club’s annual dinner and dance over which .were the better fighters — small dogs or big ones. A more serious long-term problem, Mr Cairns says had been an attempted take-over of the club committee by less-experienced breeders who brought in whole families of children, some of them of tender years, to vote at meetings.

“The trouble with dogs,” Mr Cairns says, “is that it attracts people who’ve probably never been in an organisation before; it goes to their heads.

“The point really was the people trying to take over were aided and abetted by a relaxation of the rules under which the committee should be elected by paper ballot. The rdsult was votes from children some of whom were so young their parents had to hold their hands up. At the previous year’s meeting, one child even voted while its mother was changing its napkins.”

The Yorkshire terriers world is already strained' by rival factions *— known as Upstairs (established breeders) and Downstairs (new breeders). But its members have heard with alarm that the Kenr.el Club has asked Scotland

Yard to investigate the appearance of forged Kennel Club pedigree certificates in Germany. The German forgeries, which also cover Afghan hounds, might enable foreign breeders to pass off inferior dogs as Britishblessed champions. Considering that a first-rate Yorkshire terrier can earn well over $2OOO in stud fees, the implications are serious.

Allegations are currently flying around the Yorkshire terrier society that some biased judging at shows has tended to keep the awards — and consequently the loot from breeding Yorkshires — safely in the Upstairs ranks. The tendency has also been for Upstairs breeders not to invite Downstairs to social functions at their homes, and vice versa.

“Even tue society’s committee is completely split,” one leading breeder says. “I suppose we’re a pretty civilised lot compared with the bull terrier people. Most of us keep our anger to ourselves. “Money’s go lot to do with it, unfortunately. The Yorkshire is a very popular toy breed, fetching anything from $45 to $245, depending where it’s been bred and what it’s won. Passions run high. It makes us all very very cagey.” At Kennel C!"b head-

quarters, the club’s secretary, Lieut Commander John Williams, told me politely that our interview would be recorded on tape. Relations between the club and the canine Press have been so poor that the club recently took the unusual step of issuing a detailed statement refuting what it claimed to have been a string of inaccurate reports in “Dog World” and “Our Dogs.” Over all, the Kennel Club’s reaction to the clamour about its “complacency” in the dog newspapers seems to be that the troubles of Dogdom have been over-stated by an excitable minority. Certainly the club is coping manfully with its daily administrative obligations.

Pressure is mounting, however, for them to take a sharper and more positive public stance against the rising tide of petulant misbehaviour which is worrying many breeders and show judges. Mrs Sillitoe suggests that one solution might be to emulate Jockey Club rules, with champion dogs undergoing examination before their placings are confirmed. “Every breed, not just poodles, has been affected by recent developments,” she says. “It’s happened in every sport. Everyone’s gone mad. T,.t time when you could go to a show and have a nice day out has gone.”