Owner celebrates Crufts success

JUST days after being crowned among the nation's top dogs, Swedish Vallhunds Maud and Phoebe are enjoying life back at home today.They made their owner Pauline Harrild proud at the weekendwhen they impressed judges at Crufts, bringing first and second place rosettes back to Reydon.

JUST days after being crowned among the nation's top dogs, Swedish Vallhunds Maud and Phoebe are enjoying life back at home today.

They made their owner Pauline Harrild proud at the weekendwhen they impressed judges at Crufts, bringing first and second place rosettes back to Reydon.

Four-year-old Phoebe, a challenge certificate winner, came first in the Swedish Vallhund limit class and 19-month-old Maud was awarded second place in the post-graduate bitch class.

Miss Harrild, of Keens Lane, in Reydon, has been keeping Vallhunds - a Swedish cattle herding dog - since 1980 and has bred champion dogs in the past.

She said: 'The dogs are judged on everything - their heads should be triangular when you look from the top and they should have light markings, known as saddle marks, across the tops of their backs. Then the judges look at their shape and length and how they move.

She added: 'You have to be very dedicated - and probably a little bit mad - to show dogs but it is always great fun. I have kept Vallhunds for years and my mother showed Great Danes for about 50 years as well.'

The breed was first introduced into the UK in the 1970s after being built up from just five Vallhunds which remained in Sweden after the second world war. This year, 69 Vallhunds competed at Crufts.