Magic Mike crowned UK’s Top Dog

Erin, Sara and Oliver Robertson with Mike – Top Dog 2018. Credit Beat Media and the Kennel Club

Every weekend dog show exhibitors and their canine partners travel the length and breadth of the country to compete for prizes in the breed, group and Best in Show rings. Through the year those wins are recorded and at the end of each year a dog is crowned Top Dog.

In 2018 the winner was a cheeky young Petit Basset Griffon Vendéen called Ch Soletrader Magic Mike. This young man is no stranger to success having started winning Bests in Show before he was even a year old with his handler and owner Sara Robertson.

That success has kept going ever since and in 2018 he swept up almost every top win the breed ring, heaps of group wins and a fine collection of Bests in Show too making him the runaway winner of Top Dog and Top Hound 2018, a prize his mother Ch Soletrader Peek A Boo (Jilly to her friends) won in 2012 as well as Best in Show at Crufts 2013.

Mike’s Bests in Show in 2018 included WELKS, SKC (May and again in August), Bath, Border Union, Richmond, Houndshow, Bournemouth and LKA.

Runner-up to Mike as the UK’s second most successful dog in 2018 and Top Utility breed was another dog familiar with the big wins, even winning Reserve Best in Show at Crufts in 2017 as a very young dog, Melanie Harwood’s Miniature Poodle Ch Minarets Best Kept Secret.

His 2018 wins included a Reserve Best in Show from judge Andrew Brace at Three Counties, and Best in Show at Paignton and Driffield.

Rounding out the podium places is yet another on a incredible run of wins stretching back to 2016 when he first started winning Gundog groups – Vinnie the Cocker Spaniel. Sh Ch Veratey Vincenzo at Cassom along with his owner Sarah Amos-Jones have had a superb few years becoming the new breed CC record holder during the year. Some of Vinnie’s biggest wins of the year included Best in Show at City of Birmingham, Reserve Best in Show at the National Dog Show under Mike Gadsby and another Reserve at Darlington.

Kerry Blue Terrier Ch Balboa Nembo Kid was the Top Terrier in 2018 winning Best in Show at Darlington and Belfast, and Reserve Best in Show at Driffield along the way. With those shows all running back to back in the autumn he definitely form form towards the end of the year.

Finishing the year Top Toy was the Japanese Chin Ch Rakuchin Kenji Na, JayJay was Toy group winner at the National Dog Show early in the year, won to breed specialty shows and finished 2018 with 10 CCs.

Top Working dog of 2018 was Ch Meadowpark High Class the Bernese Mountain Dog, otherwise known as Milo. Milo is another dog to have started winning as a very young dog, which is extremely unusual in a breed of this size but his class and quality was evident even then. His big wins in 2018 saw him win Working & Pastoral Breed Association of Wales Best in Show and group wins at SKC (May), Midland Counties and Working & Pastoral Breeds Association of Scotland.

The Samoyed ‘Dan-the-man’, a real veteran at 9 years old, was the winner of Top Pastoral in 2018. His successes stretch back years, in 2014 he was Reserve Best in Show at Crufts having won two Bests in Show in 2013. And one of those wins he nearly replicated in 2018 but was awarded Reserve Best in Show at LKA behind Magic Mike, 2018’s Top Dog. He also won Reserve at Blackpool.

Find full dog show results from Fosse Data and Higham Press.