I am not into dog shows in any way shape or form but I too noticed the heritage breeds' performance at Crufts and I was certainly more interested than usual, particularly with the Cardigan Welsh Corgi.
One thing you show people may not have noticed however, were the results from the Gamekeeper classes. Here, the entrants must have been certified by their shoot's gamekeepers that they had been working on shoots during the previous shooting season.
The any variety Spaniel classes were clearly full of heritage breeds but for me it was nice to see that brother and sister Irish Water Spaniels won the dog and bitch class respectfully. These two, Zac and Brise, are real promoters of our breed and anyone who went to the recent IWS mingle would have seen them both. They can often be seen doing gundog demonstrations at game fairs and were part of the Sporting Irish Water Spaniel Club's demonstrations at last year's Yorkshire, Southern Counties and CLA gamefairs.
Zac went on to come third in Limit.
A not very good photo of both of them at Crufts can be seen at the following link.
Zac and Brise
