Scooby Snacks

‘DRUGS and sport are a potent mix. Without drugs, whether in the form of approved dietary aids or banned substances, who knows what the state of sport would be?

‘My name is Prince Battenberg and I’m an alcoholic’

Would muscle-bound men and women break records each year if it were not for chemical enhancements?

Not that all drugs are performance aids, and any athlete would be a fool to smoke a large reefer before competition or fill their water bottle with three parts Kool Aid to one part LSD if they wanted to win.

However, they may do so by accident, be nobbled by the opposition, as it were. And it gives us no pleasure to learn, via the Independent, that such accusations are upsetting the world of dog shows.

(Before you take issue, dog-showing is a sport, blending natural athleticism with rigorous training to enable the sporting hound to stand still, canter at its master’s heels and then, like all champions, sit on the winner’s podium and appear in celebrity endorsements for tinned food and car insurance.)

The dog that its trainers, Clive and Nancy Evans, claim was ‘got at’ is called Kerri, a young dobermann pinscher bitch who was runner-up in the puppy section at last year’s Crufts.

At the Wimbledon of dog shows, the story goes that Kerri was left in a van until the moment of her showing.

‘While walking to the ring, somebody walked past and gave her, maybe, a piece of meat with a sedative on it,’ says Clive, a dog warden from Tewkesbury.

‘When my wife took her to the ring, Kerri was listless…If you had just pushed her gently she would have fallen over.’

Not that we or Clive would advocate pushing a dobermann over, since doing so can lead to much pain and the loss of the pushing hand.

But this incident is, apparently, not an isolated one and, in the Guardian, the couple say they’ve heard from a number of fellow breeders who claim their dogs were similarly targeted.

But if true, who would do such a thing? A rival breeder is a possibility, but we wonder if these dogs had not pre-ordered the drugs from a pusher.

After all, Kerri is young and impressionable, and, as anyone who has even risen to the top of their sporting tree will attest, the temptation to escape the pressures of such a rarefied life through drugs and drink can often be too great to resist.’

Posted: 10th, March 2004 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink