A Brief History of the UKC

The United Kennel Club (UKC) was founded by Chauncey Bennett in 1898 because the fledgling American Kennel Club (AKC) would not register his American Pit Bull Terrier, Bennett's Ring.

The AKC wanted the world to know they were not just about dogs;  they were about well-bred dogs owned by well-bred people. The AKC was eager to show that they were willing to wash their hands of riff-raff, both human and canine, and the American Pit Bull terrier was where they decided to draw the line.

Of course, the AKC ban on the Pit Bull did not last too long. 

With the rise of the Little Rascals TV show of the 1930s, "Petey" the dog became a star, and the AKC decided to reverse itself and add the American Staffordshire Terrier to its roles.  This was, however, the very breed that the AKC had rejected just 35 years earlier.

Today the UKC is the second largest canine registry in the U.S., which is to say that it is first in line to be in direct competition with the AKC. 

Standing behind it, of course, is a dizzying array of other multi-breed registries -- the American Rare Breed Association, the Canadian Kennel Club, the Continental Kennel Club, the World Wide Kennel Club, the Fédération Cynologique Internationale (FCI), the International Progressive Dog Breeders Alliance, the National Kennel Club, and the Animal Research Foundation.

The UKC claims it promotes the "total" dog, i.e. a dog that performs as well as it looks. In the early days of the UKC, this was largely true, as most of the registries were coon and fox hounds, pointers, retrievers, setters, and herding dogs.

Along the way, however, the United Kennel Club began adding more and more breeds of dogs that never had a job to do -- lap spaniels, kitchen-floor cruising terriers, and fluffy coated dogs that could only be called a "working dog" if you worked in a hair salon.

At about the same time, the AKC began ramping up with more "performance" events (agility, earthdog, herding demonstrations, obedience, etc.), while the UKC began adding conformation shows and various contrived dog sport events (go to ground, obedience, agility) that were pretty far from true work.

The result is that today, at least on paper, both organizations seem to be quite similar to each other. 

In practice, however, the two registries continue to have divergent looks and feels, with the UKC having a slightly frayed-at-the-edge quality -- what some might call southern charm and what others might call redneck roughness. The AKC, on the other hand, has gone in the other direction, with carefully choreographed dog shows in which a hair is rarely out of place, the judges are matrons dressed in their Sunday finest, and all the literature is carefully branded and color-coordinated within a unifying palette.

The AKC and the UKC are different in other regards, of course.  The AKC appears to be a failing business model.  This is an organization that has lost more than 60 percent of its membership in the last 15 years.  Projected forward, at current rates of decline,the AKC could be out of business in 15 years time.  

Of couse the AKC still has a much larger membership than the UKC, which is only about 250,000.  That said, the UKC's membership seems to be holding steady and may, in fact be slightly growing.

What's any of this mean for the future?  It's hard to say. 

The UKC is certainly better poised to lead in the world of dogs than the AKC is -- they are not quite as encumbered with the yoke of sniffing social pretensions as the AKC, and their members are more likely to value the work of dogs, and not just the ribbons.  That said, leadership starts with action. 

The good news is that the decision to engage in action sits squarely on the shoulders of one person, Wayne Cavanaugh, who owns the UKC (a for-profit company) outright.   Cavanaugh is a former AKC Vice President and is said to be smart and charming.  But he is also, without a doubt, a pretty good businessman.  Would dropping English Bulldogs from the registry or promoting performance cross-breeds be a good business decision?  Would deviating in any substantive way from AKC  and Kennel Club breed standards and closed-registry tradition mean a steep and marked decline in UKC dual-registered dogs?   You see, things are not simple and straight if you are running a business -- and all canine registries, whether they are for-profit or are "non-profit" are businesses. 

So will the UKC lead?  Time will tell, and we shall see.
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