IT’S the world’s most prestigious dog show attracting thousands of pooches every year.
But over the years Crufts has been dogged by controversies – from ‘KGB style’ poisonings to abuse allegations and even fraud.
Crufts is held at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham[/caption]
In 2015, prize-winning Irish Setter Thendara Satisfaction, aka Jagger, died just days after competing at Crufts[/caption]
More than eight millions viewers are expected to tune in to the televised event on Channel 4, which has been branded “grotesque and unethical” by animal rights activists over the years.
As 24,000 dogs and their owners descend on Birmingham for the annual competition, we take a look at the scandals that have hounded Crufts.
Mysterious poisoning
In 2015, prize-winning Irish Setter Thendara Satisfaction died just days after competing at Crufts.
The three-year-old, informally known as ‘Jagger’, keeled over during a walk back home in Belgium, leaving owners Willem and Aleksandra Lauwers devastated.
The £50,000 pedigree pooch had reportedly consumed beef laced with poison – sparking allegations of a ‘KGB style hit’ within the grounds of the National Exhibition Centre.
The saga made The Sun’s front page, with the headline ‘Murder at Crufts’.
The rumour mill went into overdrive when a shih-tzu, a West Highland terrier and Afghan hound also suffered serious illnesses during the tournament.
However, according to the Kennel Club, which has run the show since 1939, a post-mortem found the poison in the tainted beef was eaten by the pooch in Belgium, not England.
Dr Patrick Jans – the vet in charge of the investigation – told The Sun: “I doubt it happened at Crufts. I think that it is unlikely and I am surprised everyone is saying that is the case.
“It could have happened on the way back from Crufts or even in the hours after they came back.”
In 2015, the poisoning of a dog that attended Crufts made global news[/caption]
The offender has never been caught and the Lauwers are still convinced foul play was involved, writing on Facebook in 2016: “We are 100 per cent sure he was maliciously poisoned.”
Cruelty claims
It wasn’t a great year for Crufts in 2015, as one of its handlers was blasted with cruelty claims.
The Best in Show winner Rebecca Cross sparked outrage when she picked up her black Scottish terrier Knopa by the tail.
Viewers raged after she lifted the champion pooch off the podium “like a coffee pot”.
Around 190,000 people signed online petitions calling for Rebecca to be stripped of her prestigious title for alleged animal cruelty.
Rebecca and Knopa the Scottish Terrier won Best in Show in 2015[/caption]
The petition stated: “Under KC Rule A42 Ms Cross is guilty of ‘behaving discreditably and prejudicially to the interests of the canine world’ and should be held accountable.”
Organisers the Kennel Club said it had told Ms Cross it was unacceptable to pick up Knopa in that way, but “despite repeated requests not to do so, she went ahead”.
Ms Cross later apologised, adding: “I didn’t do it on purpose, it was just habit. It’s just one of those things.
“It happened and I tried to really think about it and not do it, but it’s habit.”
£16K benefit fraud
In 2019, former Crufts competitor Dawn Gregory was outed as a benefits cheat.
She’d claimed she could only walk 20 yards at a time following a brain hernia and was listed with the Department for Work and Pensions as suffering headaches, neck and shoulder pain, weakness to her left side and mini-strokes.
Yet investigators were left gobsmacked when they discovered Gregory was well enough to breed dogs at her £300,000 home in Kettlethorpe.
And they were even more stunned when the prize-winning Kennel Club-registered breeder was seen on camera briskly trotting beside her dog at Crufts.
Prosecutors said Gregory claimed £16,719 at an enhanced rate she was clearly not entitled to.
She admitted to benefit fraud and got an eight-week jail term, suspended for a year, and a three-month electronically monitored night-time curfew.
The court also ordered the confiscation of £16,719 of assets.
Puppy killer
In 2017 a Crufts award-winning dog breeder killed eight border collie puppies by putting them in a freezer, a court heard.
Margaret Peacock, then 63, claimed she’d contacted a local vet for help first, concerned the pups might have genetic mutations because their parents had been siblings.
Basingstoke Magistrates’ Court heard she made two calls threatening to kill the dogs, but the vet refused to put them down.
Peacock then made a third call and told the receptionist the pups were in the freezer. The following day she turned up at the clinic and handed over a bag containing eight frozen puppies.
One was still alive but had to be put down. None of the puppies showed any signs of having genetic defects, despite being inbred.
Peacock blamed the vets for giving the puppies the worst death they could be given, but the fact remains it was the defendant’s choice
Andrew Austin, prosecutor
Prosecuting, Andrew Austin told the Basingstoke Magistrates’ Court: “Peacock blamed the vets for giving the puppies the worst death they could be given, but the fact remains it was the defendant’s choice.”
During an inspection at her home in Farnborough, Hampshire, the RSPCA found a ninth dead puppy – part of the same litter – which was later found to have died after it was struck on the head with a tin opener.
Peacock admitted three counts of being a responsible person failing to prevent the causing of unnecessary suffering to an animal, and was sentenced to two concurrent 12 week jail terms, suspended for 12 months.
Savage attack
The grim injury on Natasha Turner’s leg after the attack[/caption]
Her shoe covered in blood following the gruesome attack[/caption]
Last year Margaret Peacock was jailed for two years and six months after her pet Belgian Malinois savaged a woman visiting her home in 2021.
The dog, called Mako, tore into Natasha Turner’s leg, leaving her screaming in agony.
The Crufts breeder, then 69, was also bitten as she wrestled Mako behind a gate, and later begged Natasha not to call the police, fearing her pooch would be put down.
She was convicted of being in charge of the dog while it was dangerously out of control, banned from owning a dog in the future and fined £190.
Speaking about the attack, Natasha said: “It was like someone had got a knife, put it in your leg and was tearing it through with a knife, that’s the only way I can describe it.”
She was left needing plastic surgery for her injuries and in “constant pain”.
Judge’s illegal puppy farm
Shamed Crufts dog show judge Gareth Lawler[/caption]
In 2022 a Crufts judge was found guilty of operating an illegal puppy farm, where he kept dogs in miserable, filthy conditions.
Shamed dog show judge Gareth Lawler, then 57, was ordered to pay £78,000, or face a year in jail as a result.
The well-known Kennel Club judge made £153,000 from breeding 27 puppy litters of eight different breeds and selling pups for up to £2,000 a pop.
Authorities found evidence of ‘large-scale’ illegal breeding after obtaining a warrant to search his home in Hendy, Carmarthenshire.
Animal testing outrage
Lawler’s shameful actions came just a few years after another Crufts judge, Ron James, was booted out of the Kennel Club for carrying out cruel experiments involving beagles.
In 2019, it was revealed Dr James used to work at animal testing centre Huntingdon Life Sciences.
It was there that the Kennel Club panellist published four scientific papers based on experiments on beagles.
In one study, chemicals were reportedly fed to the dogs to observe side-effects, while another experiment involved taking tissue samples from a pooches’ testicles.
Dr James later admitted: “I stepped down because I was asked to step down, but this is a matter between me and the Kennel Club”.
