RATS Annual Dog Show, Bedfordshire Growers on 18 May 2025

By Clare Markey

On Sunday 18 May, we were delighted to once again welcome our adopters and loyal supporters to our annual dog show at Bedfordshire Growers.

Having had a rather warm day last year and a cold one the year before, we were blessed with the most perfect weather and with it came the crowds! 

Switching the show to a Sunday (for the first time in many years) proved to be a great move and we saw record numbers on so many levels. It was amazing to see so many familiar faces; a number of our ex-kennel residents came with their new families and a mention must go to our special guest, Zack, who entered our ring with such amazing confidence, looked incredible and then won Best Rescue! And none of our judges knew him!

We were thrilled to bring together our volunteers from both counties, many of whom ran their own fundraising stalls such as the traditional tombola, soft toy tombola, pet items, jams and chutneys, loaded cookies, homemade liver cake, and claw clipping, to name but a few.

We had a number of outside stalls this year which added to the variety and gave our attendees lots of choice: Ruff Diamond with collars, harnesses and leads, Canine Dynamics Massage Therapy who offered free muscular health checks, Made of Kent brought their pet accessories (dog beds, coats, snuffle mats) and The Paw Store had some yummy treats to spoil all the dogs with! Last but not least, our have-a-go agility area proved very popular among owners and offered something a little different whilst they waited for each class. 

We are blessed with an amazing area to use at Beds Growers, affording us to have two rings - one for pedigree classes and one for novelty. Our judges, Joan Hutching (Pedigree) and Bev & Si from Sensible Paws (Novelty) had their work cut out with a record number of entries, and did an amazing job. We would also like to thank our sponsors, who co-judged our novelty classes. 

Running events such as the dog show always take a huge amount of work behind the scenes. We are truly lucky to have a wonderful group of volunteers who give up their precious time to set-up, clear-down, run stalls, cater, advertise etc - without them these events would struggle to take place in the area.

Our amazing team of catering ladies supplied a wonderful spread of cakes and sandwiches, all kindly donated, and once again exceeded takings from the year before by tallying up over £800, and the registration desk took £750, which are both new records! 

For the first time we were very excited to be approached on the day by one of our supporters, Kieron Lee, who offered to take some drone footage of the show and some stills from the ground. Kieron has compiled a short video, which we will be sharing on social media soon.  

We cannot thank everyone enough for the support we received. Our next dog show will take place at Highfield Kennels, Hare Street, Buntingford on Sunday 31 August. 

Official Dog Show Photos: www.wynndogphotography.com