Last Sunday we decided to go to the Stray Aid Charity Dog Show and Gala.
It was being held in Hardwick Park, Sedgefield, County Durham.
Sedgefield is a mere 30 minutes away from us here in Easington Colliery, but thanks to the wonderful integrated SatNav in our Citroen C5, we got to enjoy a much longer drive through the Durham countryside. In fact our Citroen SatNav decided to almost triple the time it should have taken to arrive at Hardwick Park. Maybe Citroen have shares in the oil industry? So it’s beneficial for them to get you to drive further than needed, all in order to boost their share dividend.
When we did eventually arrive at Hardwick Park, we parked up, chucked a couple of quid into the Pay and Display machine, and and headed into the show area.
Barley, our rescue Lurcher (adopted from Stray Aid) was overjoyed at being around so many other dogs. He’s a very social young lad, who loves the company of other dogs.
We had a look at some of the stalls, and we grabbed a late breakfast; a pulled pork roll and a bottle of coke, which we shared as we watched the dogs wandering around.
We mooched round, milling with the other dog owners, and letting Barley meet lots of the other hounds.
There was a speech by someone from Durham County Council, I can’t remember her name.
Then we watched some of the events in the show ring.
We would have entered Barley into some of them, but then that would not have been fair on the other dogs; he’s pretty perfect so would definitely have won every event he entered. I’m not biased.
My only gripe about this event was the music coming from the P.A. system. It was very loud, and low quality. We noticed that some of the dogs found it a little distressing.
Having said that, I’m really glad we went to the Stray Aid Charity Dog Show and Gala, and we’re looking forward to going again next year to support the wonderful work that Stray Aid does for animals in need.
Blog post by Richard Randall
