Rescue Dog Wins Chiswick Dog Show

A dog rescued from the streets of Moscow was Best in Show at Chiswick House Dog Show last weekend. Jack, a three-year old border collie, owned by Yulia Titovets, scooped the award as hundreds of dog-lovers showed off their pets at the cricket pitch in Chiswick House.

Yulia was studying in for a Masters degree in management and marketing in London and working part-time as a dog-walker and RSPCA volunteer when a friend emailed a link to a website in Moscow showing abandoned dogs.

" I've been a dog-lover all my life but as the family moved a lot when I was young, I was never able to have a dog as a pet. I fell in love with the picture of Jack on the website two years ago but as I was studying in the UK , I thought it would be impossible to bring him here. " she explained.

When Julia went to Moscow on holidays she decided she had to make every effort to get Jack and pursuaded her then boyfriend, now her husband, to look after the dog until she could make arrangements to bring him to London.

"He spent a year in Russia while I got all the papers and vaccinations sorted. I found out there was no quarantine to the UK. Actually he was in quite good shape apart from needing a good wash when I got him- he had been housetrained and had a collar. The animal shelter had kept trying to contact an owner but could not find one".

Border collies are quite a rarity in Russia as they are not traditionally used as sheepdogs. Yulia believes he is probably crossed with a husky. She estimates that are fewer than two dozen border collies in Russia.

Since his arrival last summer, Jack has collected dozens of awards, including a Scruffts award for Most Handsome Dog in the Battersea Regional heat of the national crossbreeds competition.This was his first time to enter at the Chiswick Dog Show, where he also won in the Best Tricks class, beating off competition from twenty other entrants.Yulia has now set up her own company, Four Little Paws ,in north London. She now specialises in dog photography as well as dog-walking and boarding.

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Picture: Four Little Paws

Dogs of all shapes and sizes were entered into the fifteen classes , including Best Puppy, Handsomest Dog and Prettiest Bitch. It was the seventh successful show run by Chiswick House Organised Walkers (CHOW), to raise funds for dog-related projects.

Actress Maureen Lipman, who opened the show , showed off her basenji, Diva, and said she realised what a source of joy and companionship a dog could be after the death of her husband.

Last year nearly 1500 people attended the dog show, and the organisers say this year's event was equally succesful. The show also launched an appeal aimed at raising funds to support the Medical Detection Dogs Charity . The organisers want to encourage 5,000 dog-owners throughout the country to donate £20 each to train ten dogs to be canine detectors or medical alert dogs.

For more information about the show visitwww.chiswickhousedogshow.org.uk .

September 29, 2011