14 DAY TRIAL // The news broke that Crufts, i.e. an annual international dog show whom many regard as simply the world's greatest, is about to ditch its ban on looks-enhancing products.
More precisely, dog owners who wish to enter their pooches in this competition will no longer have to worry about the fact that, besides bathing them and using a blow drier to puff up their fur, there is not much else that they can do in order to pretty them up.
For those unaware, the Crufts ban on using hairspray and cosmetics to make the dogs taking part in this competition more appealing to the eye has been around for roughly nine decades.
However, the Kennel Club, i.e. the organization in charge of overseeing and hosting this dog show, has recently agreed to give in to the dog owners' demands, and allow the use of so-called performance-enhancing products, sources say.
This basically means that breeds whose fur is naturally white are to be made even whiter with the help of chalk, and that hairspray will be used to tame frizzy looks.
Interestingly enough, it looks like most of the people whose pooches make regular appearances in this dog show have been using both hairspray and cosmetics since many years ago.
As Sandy Vincent, the current secretary of the Standards Poodle Club of Great Britain, puts it, “The Kennel Club's position was ridiculous. The majority were using hairspray anyway.”
“It made us look foolish in the eyes of everybody overseas. In the US they think nothing of using hairspray. It's a beauty competition. It [the hairspray ban] is like Miss World being made to go on without her make-up.”
Still, one cannot help but wonder how various animal rights activists will feel about the decision to allow the use of both hairspray and other similar products in this competition, seeing how, more often than not, dogs and cosmetics do not really see eye to eye.