Terrier trio creating rare spectacle at Crufts this year

BirminghamWorld

A breeder is creating a rare spectacle at Crufts this year by showing three generations of the same pooch family.  Karen Hobson, 51, has bred three generations of show dog of her favourite pooch, the Irish terrier.  Crufts organisers say it's rare to see three generations of the same family on the famous green carpet.  Plus Irish terriers are classed as a vulnerable native breed, with less than 300 pups registered with the kennel club each year, so Karen's show entry is extremely rare.  Karen started her terrier family with Roisin, now 13, who is not a show dog.

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00:00Are you tired? Oh baby boy. My name's Karen. This is my four Irish Terrier generations.

00:08Three of them I share. This one here is the oldest. She used to be my grooming competition

00:13dog when I first started out, oh gosh, about 16 years ago. We have Irish Terrier Top Veteran

00:22from 2022, her daughter who is a point away from being a UK champ, and then the naughty

00:30little puppy who's nine months old and he's a handful. This is my golden girl, this is

00:38Zayliss, she's my Top Veteran. She retired at Best Veteran then, so she's been retired

00:45for a couple of years or so now. She's coming out of retirement especially for Crufts this

00:49year. We do show up and down the UK, we go as far as Scotland, and the southern one is

00:57down here at Bath which is in May, so we do have a great time going all over the place

01:02and she absolutely loves it more than the others, so she's been an element these last

01:07couple of weeks getting ready. Obviously this year we're at Crufts with the three generations.

01:14My journey with showing and Crufts started a few years back. I've been showing Ayliss

01:19who's my Veteran for about nine years now, so obviously about nine years ago was our

01:25first outing to Crufts, which is something that I'll never ever forget. Standing on that

01:32green carpet for the very first time was quite nerve-wracking and always weird to think that

01:38a green carpet can all of a sudden become very luminous and take over, but it was in

01:44amazing feeling and it gave me a feeling that I didn't want to stop, so that's why

01:49we carried on and where are we now? Ten years on, she's going to make her last step onto

01:57that green carpet. We've brought her out of retirement especially for this year so that

02:04she can join her daughter who's five and a half and her grandpup who is nine months old

02:12at Crufts to fill the whole line of the three generations. So it's going to be an exciting

02:21day. Nervous but exciting. Most thing I'm looking forward to is the possibility of meeting Claire

02:27Boulding. Please, I would absolutely love to see her in person. I think she's fantastic and we just

02:36love everything that she does. So if you're listening, we would love to come and say hello

02:41and there's three Irish pups that would love to come and see you.

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