Shropshire dogs and their owners have continued to walk away with top honours at Crufts 2009, writes Ben Bentley.

Freddie the West Highland White Terrier, owned by Jennie Griffith of Leebotwood, won best in breed in the hotly-contested West Highland Terrier White category.

Freddie was paraded around the ring by her handler Thomas West, a 20-year-old computer student, also from Leebotwood.

Delighted Jennie, 63, said: “Thomas handled Freddie brilliantly and we could never have won it without him. It takes a lot of hard work to get this stage but it is all worthwhile.” Church Aston veterinary worker Janet Welton scored best of breed with Sherri, a five-year-old miniature long-haired daschund. Janet was handling Sherri on behalf of friend Janet Holmes.

And Mrs Welton, who has been coming to Crufts for 20 years, was delighted at finally breaking her best-of-breed duck.

She said: “It was very special to finally win and it was great for Janet, who is a great friend, but was too ill to show Sherri. She has been on a great run coming into Crufts winning best in show at the miniature daschund championships so in some ways this was not much of a surprise.”

The successes came after Wendy Tobijanski, of St Martin’s, near Oswestry, also walked away with a top award at Crufts. Her Cesky dog called Ceska won best in breed in front of 160,000 people packed into Birmingham’s NEC.

Other county Crufts successes so far include Welsh Terrier Taicligh Star Trooper, owned by Miss SW Williams, from Telford, who won best puppy in the breed class, and Plushcourt Pedra, a Portuguese Podengo owned by Mrs K Bayliss, of Shrewsbury, who won reserve best dog in the breed.