Its four thirty on a Sunday morning, its minus 2 degrees, and the car is frozen over.  What sort of person would possibly be awake at this time???  Sue & Gemma Knight and their Gemswin Flat Coated Retrievers, that’s who!

On Sunday 12th March, we loaded up five dogs for our annual pilgrimage to Crufts.  In the car we had Vinny (Gemswin Drop Dead Gorgeous) Hetti (Gemswin Take A Chance on Me) Tilly (Gemswin Make Me Smile) Joel (Gemswin Let Me Entertain You) and Ferris (Show Champion Gemswin Abracadabra).

All of these dogs had to qualify for Crufts by winning classes at shows throughout the year, as far and wide as Paignton to Edinburgh, the dogs have travelled and shown their socks off to achieve their place at Crufts the biggest dog show in the world.
So how did we get on??  When we arrived we met up with friends who have Slipper (Champion Gemswin Perhaps Love) who was in the very first class of the day, Veteran bitch.  At twelve years of age Slipper was the oldest Flat Coated Retriever entered and she did us proud by winning a huge class of 27!

No time for celebrations as next in the ring was Joel in Veteran dog where he achieved a very credible 4th, handing over his lead like a relay race I swapped dogs and took 11 month old Vinny into the puppy class where he showed like a professional and won !!!!!

A quick rest for a slurp of tea and Tilly was in ,unfortunately she was unplaced but put in a good performance, tail wagging all the way round the ring!  The next dog to strut his stuff was Ferris, he is a newly crowned champion and is at the top of his field so was competing in the hotly contested Open dog class along with a multitude of foreign champions, an amazing class and he did tremendously well to achieve a highly commended 5th place.

Last up was Hetti (the pocket rocket!) she absolutely showed her socks off wagging and wagging as if her life depended on it and motoring around the ring she managed to get shortlisted in a very strong class which I was overjoyed with considering most of her coat is in the brambles in Violets Lane!!

So that was Gemswin Flat Coated Retrievers very successful trip to Crufts , despite all the bathing and  trimming  they are still pets like everyone else’s dogs and we always bring the best ones home!

Gemma & Sue