JASON Hunt has shown dogs with mum Susan, who is co-breeder and co-owner of Alvin, every year since 1982.

No, that’s not true. Jason suddenly corrects himself. “Every year since 1982 apart from 2010 when I judged miniature short-haired dachshunds, the breed I was with this year.”

He was unusually young to be selected as a judge at the world’s most prestigious dog show. His being chosen is a clue to his status in the show world.

He and Susan currently have 12 dogs, mostly dachshunds but also some pugs and a French bulldog called Florence. Jason has lost count of how many accolades he and his mother have brought home over the years, not just from Crufts but also from other shows up and down the country and overseas. Last year, for example, Alvin achieved a grading of ‘excellent’ at the World Dog Show in Paris.

Crufts was his greatest triumph so far, though, and a hugely popular one with the public at the NEC in Birmingham. “It was pure elation,” said Jason.

Alvin is an excellent example of his breed, but it takes more than physical qualities to succeed. “He’s got that attitude,” said Jason. “He’s arrogant, he’s full of beans and he’s pushy.”

The family has kept dachshunds since the 1960s, but it was at the turn of the 1980s, when Jason was still a boy, that he and Susan were bitten by the dog show bug.

“Me and my brother kept on about wanting a puppy. There was an ad in the Adver and we phoned up and went to look at one.”

The family already had an older dachshund, and when that dog died they bought another to keep the younger one company.

“We went to the local Swindon Canine Society – to obedience classes – and somebody said we should show.

“We’d been to Crufts as spectators in 1979, 1980 and 1981 but we started showing there in 1982.

“It’s now become a way of life. It’s like a club and it’s fun. Win or lose, we enjoy ourselves. There’s a group of us and we all caravan together.”

Jason’s living room is packed with models, paintings and photographs of dachshunds, and some of the photographs have stories to tell. There’s an image of a beloved dog called Rolo, taken by a photographer called Mark Henrie, a legendary lensman whose other subjects have included Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield and Gary Cooper.

There’s Ossie, who was sent to a friend and fellow dachshund lover in Australia, escaped from a dog show in Melbourne and went on the run for 21 days before being recaptured after a chase around a field. There are Nelson and Tatler, who appeared as extras in a 1999 film called RKO 281, which was about the making of all-time classic Citizen Kane. There’s Whitney, who appeared in a music video with cult producer Richard X. There’s also one of those Sekonda advertising displays of a few years back, the ones with the watches looped around the long body of a dachsund. That was Whitney again.

And his advice to anybody wanting to follow in his footsteps? “Study the breed and make sure it’s the breed for you. Do your homework, go to shows. Choose a breeder whose dogs you like and follow their catalogues.

“Then, if you really, really think that’s the one for you, join a waiting list for a puppy.”