What would you prefer?

Do you think Crufts does enough when it's on television or that it would be better for the GP to actually just go there?

That's a bit like saying is it better to watch baking programmes or actually bake. :-) One whets the appetite for the other.

As someone whose sport gets no coverage year after year I don't have much choice but to go :p
The YouTube channel has been a great addition though.

I'd prefer the GP sat at home in front of the telly and gave us some more space LOL. Seriously though, definitely want it on TV and know how many people look forward to it, people who would not consider travelling far and paying a lot to GO there, but who still like to watch.

JG I mean for the education the GP get :)

As I can't get to Crufts these days, for sure I'll take whatever TV coverage I can get (commentators apart) but would welcome more JUDGING and less flyball (even if my Basset loves it on TV) and agility.   And less Clare Balding!!

but would welcome more JUDGING and less flyball (even if my Basset loves it on TV) and agility.

Indeed -it's like watching paint dry, especially the flyball! And they stopped showing ANY obedience which I found far more interesting.

The TV coverage only gives a glimpse of the event; it doesn't give any of the atmosphere at all, and certainly no sense of the scale of it, the crowds, the noise, the heat, the smells, the confusion ... nor even any idea of the sheer number of dogs there! Watching it on TV is like trying to make sense of an episode of Midsomer Murders just by watching 5 minutes of trailers.

"Watching it on TV is like trying to make sense of an episode of Midsomer Murders just by watching 5 minutes of trailers."

LOL.   Some of the judging I've experienced, and watched surely IS murder!!!

Ha, the constant complaint amongst the agility community is they don't show anything like enough agility and it's treated like an entertainment act and not the prestigious competition it is!

I have to say though, I love my agility (myself, not watching) and I can see how it would be dull to those not 'in the know' as it is not well filmed at all. The skill of agility is using your body language and commands to direct the dog around a course of 20 ish obstacles, the camera seems to always zoom in and focus on 'pretty doggy jumping' so the technique and direction of the course are lost imo. I also find it infuriating that the commentator doesn't know the rules well enough to understand faults etc, especially as there is an actual agility person commentating ringside that they could broadcast!
But totally agree on the flyball, that's nowhere near as good as agility, just stand and shout while the dogs run in a straight line, EASY!  (yes; that is a bit of agility snobbery I know!) ;-)

Ah but they now show no obedience AT ALL! That is rather unfair as nothing else is left out. Personally I find agility just as boring to watch as flyball, I could fall asleep -even bores me to tears when watching it live at Crufts before BIS -but it's a good job we all have different likes and dislikes. :) I have bred dogs that do very well in both flyball and agility and I love to watch them but not other dogs. :) As we tend to be at Crufts for at least 3 days, sometimes like this year 4, I always record the TV and so can speed past the boring bits anyway. :)

It would be nice to see more breed judging though, and less of all the irrelevant stuff like the presenters going shopping and making silly comments and showing viewers photos (rolling eyes here!!!!) etc. Still, at least it IS on TV and it has been better since it left the BBC I think. No comments like "Labradoodles will soon be KC recognised" or indeed shouts of "Suuuupreeeeeeme Champion!" :)

Bring me the agility people who think their coverage is unfair!! :p

4 full days of obedience, including 2 days of the best of the best competing in the champs for top honours and they don't utter a word on TV.

My jaw dropped last year when the presenter said "now I've been told around the rings that we aren't showing enough obedience, so now we're going to, because you can't have heelwork to music without obedience" and cut to HTM! It's just a bit of a joke now really.

Less viewers questions and more broadcast from/of this huge event, you don't get even a small fraction of it across on TV.

sound like they've managed to annoy pretty much every discipline! TBF, though I have zero interest in breed showing (so don't really bother watching crufts at all!) I do think of crufts as primarily a breed show so would expect there to be better coverage of that.
In the last few years they have shown the agility via the crufts website , my internet is too slow to use it personally so I'm not sure exactly how it works but don't they do anything similar for the obedience and non broad-casted breed events? Everyone else I know spent hours in front of their computer screens for the agility as they were showing entire classes with the ringside commentary.

Yes, the YouTube coverage is brilliant, only minor moan is that it's days/weeks before it went up so lost a bit of the magic, but still great.
Though I did show last year it's not really my thing either but I do still enjoy watching Crufts on TV :) just annoys me seeing a couple minutes of photos of viewers' pets when such a huge event is going on to be seen!

My only gripe is the constant re running of the clips of "hero" dogs ( can't remember what it's actually called ), they seem to be shown every half hour and it really cuts into the time of the stuff people actually watch Crufts for.

I only watch Crufts for the agility :-)

>4 full days of obedience, including 2 days of the best of the best competing in the champs for top honours and they don't utter a word on TV.<br />

At least years ago they used to do a whole programme covering the obedience the week after Crufts, with the highlights during the show.  I loved it,.

Back in the 1970's when I was a child I watched them show a class of rough collies judged explaining what a judge looked for, then the challenge and BOB, so that I understood how judging and getting into the group happened.  they also showed the challenge in the smooths.

My only gripe is the constant re running of the clips of "hero" dogs ( can't remember what it's actually called ), they seem to be shown every half hour and it really cuts into the time of the stuff people actually watch Crufts for.

I agree. It is all very nice and worthwhile etc etc, but they do repeat the entire stories FAR too much, wasting such a lot of time. Surely it would be enough to show it once during the first programme and then just repeat the names and numbers to call at the end or middle of each day, without showing the full videos again each time.

I thought it was only me being a right misery. Once or twice is more than enough!!!

I'm another who thinks the Hero dogs bit goes on for too long and too often, as someone has said, all very worthy, but not so frequently, more likely to get viewers reaching for the off switch.

I don't show dogs, but do like to know what is going on and why certain dogs get chosen. I would like to understand more about how being able to challenge, say, comes about. Instead I feel the commentators are dumbing it all down to the lowest common denominator.

I've been to Crufts a few times and thoroughly enjoyed it all. Usually go on gundog day to admire all the GRs and to watch some friends show their Labs, then a look round Discover Dogs and then hit the stalls. A great day out.

I think I may record the broadcasts and skip through all the boring bits and watch the fifteen minutes of good stuff left.

I agree about the hero dogs - yes a worthwhile thing etc, but far too much coverage. I'd like to see more of the breed judging, I appreciate it's tricky as there's so much of it! But YES it's bugged me for some years now that we get NO obedience coverage whatsoever!! At least we get almost no shopping, which we used to get a stupid amount of, and I think Clare Balding is great, though we need to get rid of any TV vets!