Slight sidetrack from my usual type of post, but something that has rung alarm bells with me:
Yesterday I turned on the TV to watch the final of Britain’s got Talent, mainly because I wanted to watch the amazing young couple Jonathan and Charlotte singing.
Another act caught my eye. Ashleigh and Pudsey, a seventeen year old girl and her six year old dancing dog. Ashleigh and Pudsey were well liked by the judges, one, a well know dog lover, who is involved in many dog charities, also mentioned one of the charities he’s involved in.
Wow! was Pudsey a rescue dog too?
I started to Google for information.
Pudsey, a border collie, bichon frise, chinese crested crossbreed had been a gift for Ashleighs eleventh birthday, ok, so he was a puppy, but he could still have come from a rescue centre, an unwanted pup, the result of a mishap somewhere.
Pudsey was Ashleighs best friend, they did everything together, he’d once jumped on the work surface and had stolen some food…… Aww, I was getting lovely images of a little girl and her dog against the world. I continued to read, but this idyllic image of a little girl makes good with the love of her life, started to fade rather quick.
Ashleigh also owns Buffy a bichon frise, who is Pudseys’ mother. Ashleigh and her mum are heavily into agility and freestyle, travelling the length and breadth of the country to attend all the big shows. I’ve nothing against these activities, a lot of dogs really do enjoy it, and a spot of inter-club competition can be good fun, but there is certainly no need for the long distance travelling on a regular basis, as I’m sure the dogs don’t enjoy that.
The family also own three border collies…. and…………yes, a chinese crested. Now it doesn’t take much imagination to work out how Pudsey came about, and to me it’s all starting to look very much like Pudsey is a designer dog, his purpose in life planned well before his birth.
Ashleigh and Pudsey won the competition, and this has started alarm bells ringing in my head.
How many mums and dads are now responding to the ‘I want’ from their offspring, and are frantically searching for their very own Pudsey. Worse still, how many breeders are going to jump on the bandwagon and start breeding this designer dog for the demand that is sure to happen.
But my biggest worry is how many ‘Pudseys’ that don’t quite make the grade, will end up in rescue centres, or worse still on the streets?
Ashleigh was quoted as saying ‘I want Pudsey to dance with Robert Pattinson’
I wonder if Pudsey wants to!!
Vics Pics and More 
I’m waiting for Britain’s got brains, but I think that may be a while.
Headbang re the dog stuff, no more to say. 😦
I admire the amount of dedication that goes into this type of training, but when it becomes prime time TV viewing, it then becomes more about the owners, with little consideration for the expanding consequences 😦
I’m a bit au naturale with dogs. If they want to do agility training fine, but it doesn’t suit all dogs. Not jasp and pipps I wouldn’t think (unless there are catz around in Pippa’s case). But crazy breeding? And putting them on TV to win competitions and EARN MONEY? No, it doesn’t fit my tick box at all 😦
More the reply I was expecting from you 😉
Yes, I’m very ‘au naturale’ too. Though would you believe while J was at the Dogs Trust, they had him doing agility to keep him active, he thoroughly enjoyed it, as the video they had of him with his smily face proved. 🙂
Little Sal would do it, as she’d do anything to please, but I doubt it would be through choice, so never even tried.
I did a bit with Ben, who loved it, but mostly in my back garden, we did attend a local club a few times, but he didnt keep to the course, choosing the jumps he wanted to jump at random. We kept to obedience, something else he loved.
Old H just wanted to chase rabbits and squirrels and cats and…………
This is a LOL! conversation. Ben the black lab did agility. So agile that he jumped out of the Land Rover (sliding) window when we took him for dog training! Seriously clever. He jumped on a chair too in front of dinner guests and they totally disbelieved us when we said he had never done it before. Then there was the time he took the shepherd’s pie dish off the table, dropped it on the floor, carefully licked it out and left it clean and sparkling.
Old H is a dog after Pippa’s heart 🙂
But I just can’t hack dancing dogs. Yeah, I know you expect this of me too! But it’s like dancing bears and dancing elephants (debating whether to post about that or yet more miserable horse news….) animals are not made to dance, and if they want to, they will do. But training them to do it? Nope. Not for me.
Ranty K.
Stealing food? The best ever was when T had cooked a joint of beef, he’d left it on the kitchen work surface to ‘rest’. We were all sat round the table in the dining room chatting, when Debs ex looked into the garden and said “whats Harry chewing out there” we all looked out to see H with T’s beef.
T never learnt either, as a coupe of years ago, Jasper did exactly the same thing, stealing it from the oven after T hadn’t closed the door properly. 😆
Just too funny. Lolling happily away here instead of getting on with tea 😀
The best of it was, he’d put it in the oven to ‘rest’ so J couldn’t pinch it off the work surface 😆
Another time, after he’d brought a take away curry home, thinking he’d finished eating, I’d called him upstairs to look at something on the computer, I left him looking and went downstairs, to find Harry & Sal licking the foil container, I shouted to T why had he given the container to the dogs, but apparently he hadn’t even opened it, he’d been saving it for later.
oh that is too funny! 😀
saw this post earlier but lost track of it.
there is a difference between talent and skill, imsnsho, and sometimes there are those who have both. although i did not follow the series, and had only seen one other contestant online, i was definitely rooting for Jonathan and Charlotte – for their talent and their skill, and their very moving act.
but second place is brilliant, too and even though i do not know them, i am thrilled on their behalf.
thanks for sharing your thoughts.