A Day Out At Crufts

On Friday morning the Preloved team all loaded into the car to join the thousands of pampered pooches heading to the NEC arena in Birmingham for day one at Crufts.

Day one opened with agility, flyball, heelwork, display and the group judging for gundogs. Crufts is not just about the competitions however, it is an opportunity for visitors to meet fellow dog lovers as well as learn more about dog welfare. We made sure to make the most out of our day, read on to see what we got up to!

Charities

There were some brilliant charities present on the day such as PDSA, Pets as Therapy, Dogs for Good, and Support Dogs.

Support Dogs do brilliant work helping children with autism; 1 in 100 children in the UK have autism which makes it difficult to communicate feelings and this can be distressing for a child. Autism assistance dogs have been shown to promote positive behaviour changes, provide a source of comfort, reduce stress for the entire family and much more. Check out Support Dogs to see more of the amazing work they are doing.

We also got to speak with Sue from PDSA. PDSA are the UK's leading vet charity who provide free and low cost treatment to pets.

What was amazing was that Sue and her team were giving live first aid demonstrations showing how to to react in different emergency situations. PDSA put on pet first aid courses regularly across the UK, the courses cover both theory and practical exercises so that you can be safe in the knowledge that if an unexpected situation happens you are equipped to respond.

The Main Arena

There were shows going on throughout the day in all halls but the main arena is where the major events were held.

We managed to get seats for the singles agility small group where Britain's Got Talent's Ashleigh Butler and Sully took home the prize. Check out Sully the Collie cross on Instagram @ashleighbutler7.

Rescue Dogs

We spoke to visitors about where they purchased their 4 legged friends from and found that 22% of the 102 people we surveyed had got their dog from a rescue shelter. It is important that we work together to increase this statistic going forward, rescue dogs are in need of a second chance.

There are shelters and registered charities that list on Preloved that have pets of all breeds and ages with lots of love to give.