The run-up to Crufts is always a busy time although they do try to avoid too much work for Mary. They had a super time down in Worthing at the Assembly Rooms which is a sort of big traditional theatre and where there were over 200 people for the Cabaret Night which was staged by Findon Downs. Then they had a call from the BBC to film a feature on Mary which was to be run prior to her Best in Show Night routine and they decided to come to the next night that Mary was doing down in Basingstoke on Friday 24th February. This was at a school with 200 tiered seats, a lovely square working area - although perhaps a little bit on the small side - and a completely curtained rear. Well, they couldn't have picked anywhere better as it was a superb backdrop for the filming and they filmed the whole three hour show. Mary was as amusing as ever as she took the audience through her new routine.

After the Basingstoke night, she had a couple more training sessions, then on Monday 27th February Julie Lee and Bruce arrived to stay with them from South Korea. There is a previous story on the website about South Korea and the wonderful training facility they have and the good work that Samsung are doing to try to re-educate the South Korean people on the benefits of responsible dog ownership. It's a long hill to climb but they will eventually get there, I'm sure. Bruce had been invited to compete in the International Agility at Crufts but of course they were unable to bring their own dog to compete due to quarantine restrictions. Mary had arranged to borrow Julie Skipp's dog Zorro to compete at Crufts and Bruce stayed with them for the week before the event to familiarise himself with the dog and receive some training from Mary. Although he can speak a certain amount of English, Julie Lee, who is manager of the Samsung Canine Centre, came along with him to act as interpreter and ensure he understood everything that was said. Bruce also did some training with Steve Croxford at his training facility and finished up having a choice of two dogs to run but he did choose Zorro in the end.

Taz with "dog cam"

Just before Crufts, Mary had another telephone call from the BBC from a different department this time as they wanted to try something again that they had tried but failed to do twice before. That was fitting a dog-cam to a dog! The idea was that they fitted a camera to a dog then it went round one of the agility courses that they were to go round on television - in this case the course for the Championship Agility Finals. Mary is always very wary of anything like this because obviously paramount in her mind is the dog's safety so discussions took place and based on the assurances of the experts at the BBC Mary agreed to use Taz as the "dog-cam dog" and they would try it out on rehearsal day, the day before Crufts started.
But Crufts is not just about Mary as Dave also has an enormous amount to do at the show. On the Tuesday prior to the show he took all the Agility, Obedience, Heelwork to Music and Flyball rosettes and trophies to the venue. The Kennel Club have them delivered to Dave so that he can sort them out into both class order and arena order for the four days of the show. Also Club HTM and Mary had a trade stand there, so that had to be sorted out on the Tuesday and Wednesday. And of course Dave was destined to spend four days of the show as senior commentator for all the working dog disciplines - as well as helping to organise some of them!
On the Wednesday the day before Crufts, Mary and Dave moved up to take residence in the Metropole opposite the NEC and Mary had a rehearsal spot in the Special Events Ring with her new 'All That Jazz' routine but she was also doing another routine with her sister Pauline and the music they were using was 'Me and My Shadow'. It was a super routine as Mary used Quincy and Pauline used Taz, so there were two sisters working two brothers! They were dressed identically and it was a very nice pairs routine which was really appreciated by the audience at the three demonstrations they gave in the Special Events Ring.
During the morning on the Wednesday, the building of the various agility courses was rehearsed with all the judges and of course Taz was due for his rehearsal wearing his camera! The BBC had brought in a specialist to deal with this. He had a specially made head collar with him and the camera was to be held on with velcro and it was quite amazing. It was so small that we could not believe how light it was - I can honestly say that it weighed less than a box of matches! Slightly heavier was a little battery that sat on his collar but again there was hardly any weight at all. The camera itself had a little aerial on it and the cameraman stood in the arena with a small receiver/recorder with an inbuilt screen. I think they were absolutely amazed that Taz did not resent wearing it at all.
After the practice in the Special Events Ring, off they went down to the Main Ring where Dave Jolly was practise-building his finals course. Anything that Mary wasn't keen on including such as the rigid tunnel was left out but the results were absolutely tremendous and the BBC were ecstatic. And if you watched the Agility on the final night at Crufts you will have seen the result when they showed a dogs-eye view of the Championship course.
On the first day of Crufts, Mary was not competing but was out and about in Hall 3. She did her 'Me and My Shadow' routine with Pauline in the Special Events Ring early in the morning then the next item she wanted to watch was the International Agility where Bruce was competing. This was the first of two events on the day and not an auspicious start for Bruce with 10 faults. Then later in the second part they were thrilled when he was placed third from the 15 countries competing, being beaten by only Toni Dawkins for England - who was really on form - and Janita Leinonen from Finland. Then the results of both classes were added together and they were just so pleased when Bruce representing South Korea had fourth place in the overall result, the only countries beating him were England (Toni Dawkins), Belgium (Patricia Boelens) and the Netherlands (Ton van de Laar). What a good result for someone who had only met the dog that week!

Mary at the Pedigree stand

At 12:30 pm on the Thursday Mary was on the Pedigree stand giving a clicker training demonstration and as usual it was impossible to get within 20 feet. I should mention at this point that Mary and Dave had had a telephone call the previous evening asking if Mary would go on the Pedigree stand at 6:30 am that morning as GMTV were filming an item "live" on the stand and they wanted Mary there and the Search and Rescue dogs. The main thrust of the item turned out to be the use of electric shock collars and the likelihood of their being banned.

Later that afternoon Mary did a book signing on her own stand and she was also booked for another signing on the Ringpress stand in Hall 1. Well, they had obviously put up a sign during the day to say what time Mary would be book signing as when she arrived there was a huge queue and in fact Ringpress did so well with the book, even though in their own words they took a chance with how many copies they were bringing, that by the Friday night they had sold out and Dave had to supply them with more copies to see them through the weekend! It must have been one of the best selling book at the show!

Dave commentated on one or two events in the Special Events Ring on the Thursday as well as doing the opening ceremony/parade in the Main Ring for the Inter-Regional Obedience and of course the presentation of awards for the Obedience as well. Then on the Thursday evening in the Main Ring he commentated on the YKC Agility Finals.
Friday was Dog Obedience Championships day. Mary had qualified both Quincy and Kizzy for the Championships and Obedience is very important to her and is still her first love. Quincy was in his prime and really up for it - in fact too much so sometimes when he is acting like a teenager. He did a superb round and was working very well but unfortunately coming towards the end of the heelwork, Mary was asked to do a diagonal left-turn by the steward but unfortunately she lost her bearings and came to a halt! Then just to compound matters, when it came to the scent he failed that. But he was in good company because so did the majority of the others in the class and unfortunately that included the leading dogs and in Obedience in the UK the Championship Challenge Certificate is not awarded if you lose more than 15 marks, so although Wendy Hagger won the class, she had in fact lost 15.25 marks so was not awarded the certificate.

Saturday was Bitch Obedience Championships day and the turn of Kizzy. Mary was really hoping she would do well as Kizzy has been a wonderful dog, not only extremely successful in all disciplines but has also been a joy to live with and own. And she is now 11 years old so this would probably be the last time she would qualify for Crufts Obedience. As with the previous day, Mavis Mills the judge, was marking very stiffly and Mary working 10th went into the lead having lost 14.75 marks. Marie Cartwright was also on 14.75 and later in the class Audrey Johnson went into the lead followed by Anne Northfield who lost only 6.5 marks. Next came scent where Kizzy was first to go and as she picked up the right cloth, the audience took a sharp intake of breath, so much so that it was audible and Kizzy heard it, dropped the cloth, checked the others, brought in the correct cloth very sheepishly, not knowing if she had done right and lost 3.5 marks.

It would have been better actually if the audience had applauded when she picked up the cloth as she would have known that she had done right. But Mary as usual took it on the chin and although obviously a little upset that she had perhaps lost her place, she still came fifth and the eventual winner was Audrey Johnson. Dave was busy on the Friday and Saturday with commentaries in the Special Events Ring, concluding with him commentating on both the Team and Flyball finals in the Main Ring on the Saturday evening plus on Saturday evening he commentated on a 20 minute display by both Championship Obedience winners in the Main Ring. In addition to this of course, he did the opening ceremony/parade and presentations for both days of the Obedience Championships in the Main Ring. And we had our first-ever Mexican wave in the Main Ring while they were working out the results in the Main Ring!

Mary on the set of Brainiac with Richard Hammond and the crew ( Sky 1 )

At this point, I should just mention one of the main events in the Special Events Ring on the Friday which was the first proper qualified-for Heelwork to Music and Freestyle Final. There were five HTM and ten Freestyle finalists to be judged by Kay Laurence, Lynda Edmondson and Kath Hardman. Dave wanted to commentate on this himself - one because he has the knowledge and two because he enjoys it. The arena was absolutely packed out, in fact Dave had avoided telling people what was coming next to try to empty some seats so that the enthusiasts could get a seat to watch. It was a superb competition with the best of British handlers competing. The winner of the Freestyle event was Richard Curtis with his Portugese Water Dog 'Disco'. As always, Richard performs best when he is dressed for the part and in this case he was dressed as a clown complete with make-up and it contained just about everything needed for a winning routine.
But only just as in second place was Tina Humphrey with her WSD Bluecroft My Blue Heaven - a very talented lady and only just in second place by 0.23 marks! Third came Lesley Neville with her Beardie 'Robbie'. This is another extremely talented lady and a very athletic dog even though he's not as young as he was.
In the Heelwork to Music Finals, Lesley Brocklehurst took the winning spot with her WSD Borderlair Cinnamon Twist. Lesley really does excel herself at HTM and everything just went perfectly. But unfortunately for Tina she was pipped at the post for top spot again, taking second place with Bluecroft My Blue Heaven and her dressage routine, but even closer this time with only 0.07 of a mark between her and the winner.
In third place was Gina Pink who did a great upbeat routine and daring as well both in terms of routine and costume as she performed to 'All That Jazz' .

Saturday evening, after all the competition had finished in the Main Ring, the BBC had rehearsals ready for the "live" programme on Sunday night. Mary was not due to rehearse until 10:00 pm as prior to this there was a rehearsal for a new feature going out called Friends for Life with live opera singing as part of the feature. We were in two minds what to think about this but if you saw it on television then you'll know that the whole feature was superb and very ably handled by Nick Brooks- Ward. Mary had to do a full dress rehearsal and she had bought a special sparkly shawl which looked really stunning when worn over her black blouse. She had worn it on the Thursday to do her demonstration in the Special Events Ring and would you believe that no-one could find it! Well, talk about panic! They looked everywhere - in the van, in their room, made some calls to try to track down what had happened to it and eventually there was no doubt in their minds that someone in the Special Events Ring had picked it up and walked away with it on the Thursday after her demonstration, maybe by accident or maybe it was inadvertently disposed of - we will never know.
She did her dress rehearsal without it but could not sleep that night worrying about what she was going to wear - it really was a disaster! On Sunday morning, Mary's two sisters Tricia and Pauline and Tricia's ex husband Jimmy came to Crufts and they were really supportive in as much as they were on a train to Birmingham City centre at 10:00 am to locate a Country Casuals store where Mary had bought the shawl to try to buy another one. While this was happening, Mary had a demonstration in the Special Events Ring and, as she was telling one of the stewards for the International Junior Handler, a young lady who was wearing a super evening-type jacket offered to lend it to her. But then the telephone rang and Tricia gave the news that she had managed to purchase another one - perhaps not quite so good as the original but as near as they were going to get. So a real disaster averted!

On the bench with Quincy

On the bench with Kizzy