The 2024 London DD has been cancelled .
Discover Dogs London 2022
The Keeshond Club organised the Discover Dogs stand at the Excel Centre London, over the two days of the event, 15th/16th October. Kitty and Iain brought their four legged stars, Henry (3 years) and Marmite (8 years) on the Saturday. On the Sunday they were joined by Gill and Rupert as the baby of the group at 18 Months.
The location of the booth being on a corner meant that Keeshond stand was very well attended. On the Saturday within 10 minutes of opening the venue was extremely full. There was a constant flow of visitors until around 15 minutes before event closure. On the Sunday the day started off slower for the first hour, but was busier until the last hour of the event. There was almost a constant stream of people enquiring on both days about the dogs.
In addition to current and former owners, there were a lot of people who had researched the breed and made a concerted effort to visit and see the breed. This included on both days children who brought their parents to ask questions about the breed as well as asking the most appropriate questions on dog ownership! On both days all four legged attendees did themselves proud demonstrating grooming, tricks and general breed traits as well as responsible dog ownership.
On the Sunday we were visited by the Kennel Club chief executive, Mark Beaszley to thank us for attendance. Towards the end of the day we were visited by a TV film crew recording behaviour and tricks demonstrations for a potential programme later in the year.
There were enquiries from people interested in a puppy post Covid and there was generally an understanding that there would be a wait for a suitable puppy to be available, which could be months and require a long distance to visit.
As a whole there were limited trade stands at the event. The event is noticeably different to the stands at Crufts in that people are mainly coming to find about dogs, breeds and ownership as opposed to being a current owner.
Hopefully in the future they can enlarge the breed areas as most of the time there was little room for people to visit breed stands due to the event popularity.
On a final note, we’d like to like to thank Geraldine Clark for all her hard work, support and never failing despite many questions via telephone and bombardment of emails from us, the stand volunteers. We’d also like to thank Maj. GO Evitts for his behind the scenes ferrying of hounds, supplying humans with caffeinated beverages and snacks and the dogs with constant supplies of water and also the carrying of various heavy items back to cars once we had closed the stall down.
A great time was had by all.
Iain, Kitty & Gill
