I have to confess, I always watch as much of Crufts as my family will allow. For a dog-lover like me, it is unmissable viewing, even if I do spend most of the time shouting at the TV (perhaps that's why I'm not allowed to watch much of it!) Agility, flyball and movement to music are my favourites, because I love to see dogs working and having fun. I find the extreme obedience, where the dog has to walk with a crick in its neck and unable to look where it is going because it is looking at the handler's face, a bit too much for me. The control is impressive but is it really what the dog enjoys? I'm not sure.

The beauty pageant is also not really my thing either, though I do love the diversity of breeds and the lovely condition they are all in. I find some of the handlers very entertaining though! What gets me shouting at the screen the most, is when the commentator says things like 'you can see this breed is bred to work all day with his powerful hindquarters and intelligent head blah blah blah.....' when actually the dog in front of us is hard-pushed to waddle around the show ring a couple of times. It is clear from the way that the working and showing lines of the same breed have diverged, that the show types are not bred for function, and therein, arguably, lies the cause of many of their problems.

The working Cocker spaniel, for instance, is a very different creature to the show type that we are all much more familiar with. Smaller, with a shorter coat and much shorter ears, he is beautifully adapted for his job of flushing game from the hedges and then picking up the fallen animals. His show-bred cousin would get stuck in the hedge within seconds if he tried to do the job his breed was originally bred for; however, he probably makes a better pet for not being so desperate to work the hedges every time he is taken for a walk! Horses for courses....

Similar divergences occur in the Labrador, Springer spaniel, Golden Retriever and Border collie breeds. Generally the show lines seem to get larger and chunkier than the working ones; perhaps this is more aesthetically pleasing to the handler, or perhaps this just makes them less demanding pets.

Crufts and pedigree breeders generally have had a lot of criticism over the last year or so, and it is a concern to vets that every pedigree breed has it's inherited diseases, some very common indeed. For instance, heart murmurs in Cavalier King Charles Spaniels are regarded as almost a characteristic of the breed. A working party has been set up to consider what can be done to reduce the incidence of inherited disease in pedigree breeds, but I fear there is no simple answer, short of losing our pedigree breeds altogether. The natural end of outbreeding (ie repeated crossbreeding) can be seen in dogs in developing countries - medium-sized dogs with short coats and long legs. Changing the breed standard is not going to work, because the fact is that pedigree breeds come from small gene-pools and only introducing new genes will have any effect - but then you change the breed. The fashion for first-crosses eg the Yorkipoo, has arisen from this dilemma and does produce some lovely dogs. It remains to be seen if this is the way forward.

Little Millie, who is a gorgeous ShihTzu x Jack Russell....one of the new generation of first crosses, bred to produce good pets.