What Crufts taught me about being human ...Middle East

An almost human expression and thick, leathery skin. Harsh and oily and slightly greasy to the touch. Lashing whip action. No, this is not the police description of an armed intruder nor the audio description of a slasher flick, but the judging criteria in the gundog heats at Crufts, which has resumed its annual takeover of the NEC and Channel 4 this weekend and to which I have become a reluctant convert.

Before watching Crufts I believed that what made a good dog was looking fluffy and pooing in the right place. Now I realise that it in fact involves the possession of an aristocratic head. A noble head. A feminine head. A nicely moulded head. A dog should be of substance “but in no way overdone”. It should demonstrate “pounding, trotting action”, it should be “racy, balanced and full of quality” – “and of course, it should always have a wag”.

For many years I sneered at Crufts. I scoffed at the description of a miniature schnauzer as “a real comedian” or a Jack Russell who was “a bit of a thug at home”. I was nonplussed by the strange women running round the agility ring in skirt suits and flat shoes, the self-proclaimed “dog denizens”, the introduction of more than one canine with a double-barrelled surname.

I assumed no self-respecting adult in their right mind could sincerely enter themselves in the Heel Toe to Music competition and seek to impress a crowd both human and dog with a routine to “Tale as Old as Time” from Beauty and the Beast, or dress up as a witch and direct their pet around the hall with a broom. I could not fathom that a placid, 4kg mammal called “Tapas” might be handed a microphone by Clare Balding, a woman with a degree from Cambridge.

Now, since being transformed into the world’s biggest softie by my father’s acquisition three years ago of a cockapoo called Millie, I understand how wrong I was, and what a tragedy it is that I can’t watch it with her. She would love to see the supercharged spaniel, the fun-filled fluff ball, the chatty Finnish spitz, the three-legged “whiz of a dog”, but will never be trusted to see the magic of the Flyball relay because she is both exempt from competition – being untrained, unsuccessful in the “waggiest tail” section of the local dog show, and a crossbreed – and unable to cope with the sight of even Gromit without jumping into the television.

Crufts, I now appreciate, and which generations have known before me, is a sublimely ridiculous, earnest, and sweet institution we should cherish. And not because of the dogs, but because of the side of humanity it brings out.

Yes, it is emotional (the puppies, the “veterans”, the owners who devote their lives to their bond with their pal) but, more crucially, it allows us to indulge our most shameful and judgemental human instincts – the parts of us that once jeered at failing auditionees on The X Factor or revelled in toxic conflict on Love Island – and redirect them to an innocent, harmless, beloved dog, guilt-free. I can decide who I think is deserving of Best in Show or Prettiest Bitch on whatever shallow, savage metrics I please, without questioning if I am a bad person or fretting about the problematic degree of my objectification.

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It is also an antidote to the kind of pleasing, beautiful portrait of perfection displayed on, say, the staggeringly inane With Love, Meghan, which provided my first lobotomy of this week.

There is nothing aspirational about Crufts, really: in fact it is often incredibly vulgar. The testicles hanging out of a German short-haired pointer as it races across the arena, the teeth and the slobber and the naked pink bits and the smell. The grossness of life that we hide, until we are humbled by our pets.

It makes us vulnerable and curious, too – the concerned texter who wants advice about their flatulent poodle Grouch, the one seeking help for their bull terrier who has been “drooling terribly”. The child who wonders why their dog circles in the park before finding “a safe place to do their poo in peace” (it’s related to the Earth’s magnetic fields, according to one vet). It might be a dog show, but there’s nothing more human than Crufts.

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