From the Team Jenneh “We was robbed” Facebook group:
The important part of that thread is Phil Guidry’s comment.
Phil Guidry is a senior policy analyst at the American Kennel Club.
His statement is very much in keeping with the previous comments against the Kennel Club’s new policy from Dennis Sprung, the AKC president and CEO.
So if you thought the AKC was going to realize that its institutional legitimacy was at stake and actually do something to address the very real problems that exist with breeding for exaggerated traits in certain breeds, you’d be wrong.
It’s decided to side with what is essentially a cancer on all dog breeders and, ultimately, all dog owners. Breeding for extreme and unhealthy conformation is institutionalized animal abuse, no matter how you look at it. Refusing to address these problems is the road to the ruination of the American Kennel Club. It fundamentally doesn’t understand what is happening with the body politic, and the animal rights extremists will be able to use its recalcitrance as a wonderful foil to get even more extreme legislation passed.
Way to go, AKC!
Maybe that’s why your registrations are down.
Maybe that’s why people don’t believe you when you claim to be “the dog’s champion.”
Maybe that’s why so many people are turning to designer dogs– advisedly or ill-advisedly– and to the paper mill registries.
Kennel Club has decided that it wants to have a voice about dogs for the future.
The AKC has put its fingers in its ears, shut its eyes, and started nattering “Lalalala, not listening, lalala!”
And that’s how institutions begin to die.
They can’t read the signs of their decay!
The AKC has lived by the sword of populism, leaving the authority for what dogs should be to the breed clubs. Now, it may die the same way. What’s not funny is that the breed clubs will be able to go on doing what they are doing in obscurity without the AKC to draw attention to them.
well but it maybe is for the best?
“Out of the ashes, a new club will rise! Better and stronger with the dogs’ health and functioning as a top priority!”
One can hope at least, right?;-)
Would be nice, but I fear we won’t like it when it threatens to tell us how to breed dogs. For example, should floppy ears be faulted because they increase the risk of ear infections? Is it ok to keep a gun dog for a pet? Or will it languish for lack of hunting opportunities? Should we breed dumbed down “companion dogs” for sale to pet owners?
These are all complex questions with multiple right and wrong answers. If we have a central authority that can dictate anything in the name of “Health”, we are going to have a problem.
In America, concerns about health usually trump all other concerns. So the days of “pet overpopulation” may be drawing to a close. (Thank goodness.) But “health” may be the new issue to fear. HSUS is busy lately positioning itself as the champion of dog health. (You might know, they are always to be found where the money is.)
Unlike the KC, the AKC can’t dictate to its breed clubs. And even the KC can’t require its judges to pass on questions of “health”. But the AKC has promised to talk to the clubs. Let’s hope they do. And let’s hope they and the clubs publicize widely their commitment to dog health. Because I fear that if that effort fails, public outrage will hand the reins to PETA and HSUS for another round of draconian legislation.
Your slippery slope argument does not fly. The Europeans have embraced (for the most part) a system such as that being put into place by the British KC right now:
http://newsletter2.dogdotcom.be/en/BSI_SKK.aspx
And guess what? They still have dogs with floppy ears. They even still have *gasp* Pekingese.
The AKC is way, way behind many other countries concerning dog *welfare*. It’s embarrassing.
Sure, but that’s in Europe, where dog organizations have some sort of authority and can dictate policy to judges and clubs. What I question is whether it can happen here.
So, judges and breed clubs in the US (and AKC) don’t have the dog’s best interest at heart and definitely don’t care how the public perceives registries, shows and breeders?
Your slippery slope argument has been invalidate. How do you invalidate this one?
I think they do care, but I think they are afraid of one another. Otherwise, what to make of the AKC’s assurance to the clubs that what happened in Britain won’t happen here?
Exactly, and what prevents the AKC to begin taking steps to control their breed clubs, just as it is done in Europe. Does the system not work change the system, AKC should probably check out a new way to handel this and fast.
When Europe banned ear-cropping in early 1990s, many breeders became livid, some so livid they threatened to boycott their own kennel clubs for not backing the breeders; especially Great Dane breeders. For many years, it became standard to hold up the ears of the Danes after the ban. Result? http://www.cmongreatdanes.com/cmon_photos/pho_litters1/c_doubledellago3.jpg http://www.cmongreatdanes.com/cmon_photos/pho_litters1/c_everybody.jpg
The new-found tradition of holding up the ears during exhibition is a dying practice now. People have already accepted these dogs have natural flop-ears and there is no real health- or work-reason to crop them as scientific literature proved these “reasons” are purely mythological.
So, “where dog organizations have some sort of authority and can dictate policy to judges and club” is not true. In Europe, laws become customs; customs become laws.
Yeah. That’s exactly what I thought.
I should have said the UK, but I was trying to contrast over there with over here. So, we have laws in Europe, a strong stand by the KC in the UK. What do you think will happen here? So far, the AKC has wimped out. I think it will try for a soft sell to the clubs.
What do you think the outcome will be here? If we wind up with laws, who will write them? Will they be concise and limited to breeding for exaggeration or will they overreach?
wow it cost £10 to join the canine alliance , I think i’d rather give the money to starving kids or something
That is exactly why registrations are down. Pet owners perceive, and rightly so in certain instances, that purebred dogs are more unhealthy and weak nerved compared to the “all american” mutt. AKC does not get any extra points for also failing to discipline certain judges and breeders for threatening pet onwers and new exhibitors (ya know, the FUTURE of the AKC). There is a malicious breeder/judge in my area who does this all the time and complaint after complaint is logged with AKC, but they have yet to address anything publicly. I realize it’s just a registry, but saying nothing
condones the bad behavior. No wonder new people don’t want to get involved.
In the quote, Mr Guidry refers only to “the shenanigans that occurred at this year’s Crufts”. This could mean only that AKC does not plan to follow the KC’s clumsy way of introducing “fitness” checks. I have no doubt that that many at AKC, directors, delegates, staff included, are deeply concerned about the matter of health in purebreds. How this may best be handled– and there are many complexities– is another matter entirely
I think they are… up to a point.
There are certain lines they will not cross.
They will talk about health and give money to research, but they won’t talk about the institutionalized problems that exist with closed registries and with judges rewarding extreme conformation.
I don’t think the KC had any other option to get judges to pay attention other than these health checks.
These things are a cancer on the whole system, and to treat cancer, something has to get hurt.
AKC’s refusal to address this issues in the public square will be their undoing. It puts them in a position of weakness and defense.
The AKC is responsible for much canine misery. An AKC judge’s nod of approval can propel a misfit into becoming a popular sire and the AKC “look the other way” registration system allows the progency of such an animal to continue to be registered as “purebred, AKC-registered” long after the sire himself is found to have heritable health or temperament problems. That same “purebred, AKC-registered” label on a pet-store puppy leads to thousands of impulse purchases of puppy-mill puppies (often descended from those same popular “AKC champion” sires). by people who have no knowledge of the breed they are buying.
Sure, some breeders of show dogs retire their champions to pet homes. But many of those champions go to – you guessed it – puppy mills. You see the ads in the dog magazines nearly every month. “Offering $2000 immediately for male AKC Champion (whatever breed)”. No questions asked, except one: is the dog intact? Can he sire puppies?. Though the AKC says it discourages puppy mill breeding, they have no problem accepting all those thousands of registrations of puppy-mill puppies.
“They are just a registering body. The breed clubs are responsible for the individual breeds.” No. The AKC has become, through its own intensive marketing efforts (including dog shows), the American “brand” of purebred dogs. The AKC registration is perceived by the public to be a stamp of approval, leading people to believe that if a dog is “AKC”, it’s a quality animal. Since the AKC will register the progency of any two “AKC-registered” dogs of the same breed, regardless of their quality or relationship to each other, I submit that the AKC and its breed clubs and judges bear a great deal of responsibility for the sorry state of purebred dogs. They just refuse to admit it. They know where their bread is buttered.