FROM all across Britain they came, the ‘unusual breeds’: Basenjis, bloodhounds, Rhodesian Ridgebacks, German short-haired pointers, Schipperkes, Australian terriers, Tibetan terriers, Weimaraners. At the Kelvin Hall, in Glasgow, they were joined by boxers, Labradors, cocker spaniels and golden retrievers.

In all, the Scottish Kennel Club’s all-breeds championship show in February 1956 attracted 3,691 entries, the highest ever received in Glasgow up until that point, and some 100 more than the previous year. The entries consisted of 1,679 dogs, roughly 60 per cent of which came from England.

The show was catnip (so to speak) for newspaper photographers, who had something of a field day taking pictures of, for example, this young woman with her chihuahua.

The entertainments at the two-day event saw dogs sorting out coloured ribbons in the arena, and other dogs that seemed to know how to spell out their names, and those of their masters.

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Herald Diary

On the first day a wire-haired fox terrier, Sunnybrook Special Choice, was judged the best entry; her owner, a woman who lived near Pontefract, in Yorkshire, had not travelled to Glasgow for the show because she did not think her entry had any chance of a place. She was, however, present on the second day, when Sunnybrook Special Choice was awarded the supreme championship. It was the second successive year in which the supreme accolade had gone to an English exhibitor whose entry had been judged the best on the first day.

One of the judges declared that the standard of the show had been ‘very high’. The show was visited by some 13,500 dog-lovers.