Crufts! Yes! One of the highlights of my year. I love it.

So many dog activities, sports, equipment, products, organisations and (of course) dogs in one place!

The shopping is actually one of my highlights as there aren’t that many good pet stores out there which means I end up getting most of my products online and can’t see them first. At Crufts nearly everything is all in one place!

There were a couple of specific items I was looking for as well as just general browsing, and here’s what I came home with;

Fur bungee toy

I’ve been debating about whether to buy Zebby a fur toy for ages as I don’t want to increase his drive for chasing fluffy things, but I do know that he’ll be so in to in and it may be a good alternative to chasing pheasants when out and about. We shall see how it goes.

Yakers Dog Chew

I’ve been exploring different chews for a while as they are great for keeping the dogs busy and calm. Neither of them bother with antlers, and natural treats such as salmon skins and chicken feet are great but are gone really quickly, the same with stuffed hooves.  The Yakers chews are made of yaks milk and feel really hard, plus don’t smell. It took the dogs a few sessions of about an hour each time to get through them. At £5 each they are quite expensive but fairly long lasting, and so far the dogs haven’t had bad poos or side effects.

Challenge training treats

I was searching for the Akela treats that are 80% fish and 20% sweat potato but Akela didn’t have them on their stall, so then I came across the Challenge treats which are exactly the same. These treats are really tasty, literally just contain fish and sweet potato, are small and don’t crumble. Perfect training treats.

Fun with Fido velco treat ball

At scent work classes we’ve been experimenting with different toys in order to move on from Zebby searching for food to searching for a toy that you pair with a specific scent. Although Zebby is fairly toy motivated he would much rather have food in a class situation so the treat balls are turning out to be the perfect option as I can put a small piece of chicken in it and he goes mad for it.

Lily velco treat ball

Similar to the treat ball but this is longer shape. I thought this could be a good first step to get Zebby retrieving dummies.

Ruff & Tumble Dog Drying Coat

I’ve been looking for a drying coat for a while as Guinness stays wet for so long after a swim or getting caught in the rain. I’d been round about half the show when I found Ruff & Tumble. The coats seemed really well made and the towel material the coat is made from feels very luxurious. They were quite pricey but I figure you only really need to buy these things once as they should last a while so I decided to invest in one for both Zebby and Guinness. The sizes fit really well and I’ve so far used them once after the dogs went swimming and they seem to work really well, soaking up a lot of the initial water. There were lots of drying coats at Crufts but I didn’t see any that I liked more than these.

Perfect Fit Harness

Zebby has been wearing second hand fleece harnesses since he was a pup but now that he is fully grown I figured it was time to invest in a proper harness for him, plus the one that he currently wears has a twisted strap which won’t straighten out so that can’t be very comfortable. I bought him a Ruffwear front range recently which is great, but it’s quite chunky so I want something a little lighter and when one is wet and muddy he can be wearing the other.  Unfortunately the size on the day is a little snug so they are sending me a replacement piece in the post which will be here Monday.

100 Poop Bags

These poop bag are so big and strong and I spotted them at £5 for 600 bags! Too good a chance to miss as they are way more expensive where I buy them from, plus 5% of the money made from each box is donated to Guide Dogs.

The only other things I were looking for which I didn’t find was a canicross harness and bungee lead. I was surprised to find there were no dedicated canicross stalls and just a small selection of harnesses and leads on one stall.

I’d been looking at the High Peak hands free running belt and lead combination in Pets at Home which I really liked as it’s bright yellow plus has a grab handle. Although I don’t need the belt the two are £14 which is much cheaper than some of leads I’ve seen alone.

I used it for a run this morning and it was great. The bungee makes it a lot softer of a pull, plus the grab handle is really useful for gathering Zebby in closer when passing people. The only slight downside is that it’s a little longer than the leads I normally use so he is a little further ahead of me, which is okay until someone is coming the other way and he decides to go to say hello!

Overall it was such a good day. I saw so many friends who I know through dog training, but as we live far apart I only really keep in touch with them on facebook, so it’s always nice to have a quick chance to catch up face to face. Plus the highlight of the day for me really was spending the day with two lovely friends who I don’t get to see very often anymore. We caught up and talked about dogs all day which was fantastic! I’m so pleased that I went on the Thursday as well as it’s much quieter and you aren’t battling the crowds to get to stall.