Why we were over the moon when Banrigh won at Crufts...

Vicky, Ruth and I were THRILLED when Banrigh (or Ch Drawing Down the Moon to Cusidh) won 1st Open Bitch, Bitch Championship Certificate and Best of Breed at Crufts this year. Why? Because Banrigh is one of our canine customers. It happened by accident, really. My wife, Marianne, and I both have a bad Internet habit. She spends hours online looking at sites with names like HorseDeals.com and I spend hours online looking at dogs. I have a huge yearning for a hound (actually, I have a huge yearning for almost any dog you care to mention) and several months ago I had become obsessed with Scottish Deerhounds, as one does. More by accident than design I came across a site (www.scottish-deerhound.com) devoted to the breed run by Elise and Rob Horsfield. So taken was I by the site that I wrote and offered them a sample box of Darling's for no other reason than...well...I could. Anyway, one thing led to another and the Horsfields have become much valued customers. So, as I say, their win thrilled us.

If you don't know anything about Scottish Deerhounds they repay study. This is what it says on Wikipedia about them: "The Scottish Deerhound is believed by some to have existed back to a time before recorded history. Its antecedents may have been kept by the Scots and Picts, and would have been used to help in providing part of their dietary requirements, namely from hoofed game (archaeological evidence supports this in the form of Roman pottery from around 1st Century AD found in Argyll which depicts the deerhunt using large rough hounds (these can be viewed at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh). Other evidence can be found on standing stones from around the 7th century AD reflecting a hunt using hounds, such as the Hilton of Cadboll Stone. In outward appearance, the Scottish Deerhound is similar to the Greyhound, but larger and more heavily boned. However Deerhounds have a number of characteristics that set them apart. While not as fast as a Greyhound on a smooth, firm surface, once the going gets rough or heavy they can out run a Greyhound. The environment in which they worked, the cool, often wet, and hilly Scottish Highland Glens, contributed to the larger, rough-coated appearance of the breed. The Deerhound is closely related to the Irish Wolfhound and was the main contributor to the recovery of that breed when it was re-created at the end of the 19th century."

Heartiest congratulations to the Horsfields and to Banrigh, too, of course.