Over at Pet Connection, Gina has come back from one more abomination of an AKC dog show, and she wonders if there is ANYTHING that can be done to save the AKC.
The answer is NO, but I will come back to that in a moment.
First, accolades to Gina for asking the question. It is a good and important question.
It is an important question because the AKC is starting to fail financially, and the Canadian Kennel Club has already passed that point (several times) and now sits stunned and staggering at the abyss once again.
It is an important question because after more than 100 years of Kennel Club management, so many dog breeds are diseased, deformed, and broken ... and the AKC is adding more breeds every year in a futile attempt to prop up its sagging membership.
When will the madness stop?
When will the AKC disenthrall itself from the failed eugenics policies of the 19th Century and embrace open registries and functional standards that put health front and center?
Never.
And the reason for this is simple: the AKC cannot change what it is doing without devaluing the current stock of dogs on its roles.
Let me give you an example as current as this morning's orange juice.
The Kennel Club in the UK has finally admitted an outcross Dalmatian that has bred true as a Dalmatian for more than five generations.
The dog is beautiful and healthy.
Unlike the Dalmatian wreckage embraced by the AKC, these outcross dogs do not suffer from painful uric acid stones.
How beautiful is this dog? Well, it won the first two dog shows where it was entered, and it has already qualified for Crufts.
This dog is a stunner.
But because the American Kennel Club embraces the old racist standard of "not one drop" of foreign blood, this dog cannot be registered in the U.S. or shown in the AKC.
And there's a reason for that.
Watch what happens in the U.K. If you have the brains of a butterfly and are looking to buy a Dalmatian in the UK a year from now, why would you even consider a dog from the old failed gene pool of deaf dogs plagued by uric acid stones?
You wouldn't -- not when a healthier dog is available .... and especially not when that healthier dog made it to Crufts!
Buying an "old sick Dal" is going to make as much sense as buying a Sony Walkman, or a General Motors Hummer.
Who want to buy old, failed technology? No one!
And no one wants to buy into old failed gene pools either.
And let's face it -- that's almost all the AKC has to offer these days.
The Cavalier, the German Shepherd, the Sharpei, the English Bulldog, the American Cocker Spaniel, the Dogue de Bordeaux -- all are health care basket cases.
Add to that the Dalmatian, the Pug, the Boston Terrier, the Frenchie, the Great Dane and the Pekingese (there are more, but you get the idea).
Now look at the complete rejection of the AKC dreck in the world of working dogs.
What real American houndsman would be seen with an AKC English Foxhound or American Foxhound or Otterhound?
What true coursing dog man would dare be seen with a Kennel Club Greyhound or Afghan?
What true snow-bound musher would start his Kennel with an AKC Husky?
What true sheep man would trust his flock to an AKC Old English Sheepdog or a AKC Bearded Collie or an AKC "Barbie" Collie?
It is to laugh!
And so the AKC has to die for something new to replace it.
And have no illusion: the AKC will die and it will be replaced by something else.
And it will not take too large an investment of capital and time to get the job done.
As I noted in my February column in Dogs Today:
In the age of the Internet, creating a new national registry of dogs is no longer a daunting task. If the Kennel Club will not stand for dogs that are healthier and more able than those found down at the local pound, then someone else surely will.
While it took the Kennel Club 130 years and hundreds of millions of pounds to build their current registry, it might take a young Internet-savvy entrepreneur only a few weeks and perhaps 100,000 pounds to build the backbone of a parallel Internet-based registration system that pairs modern email outreach with a dynamic web site, a powerful online date base, and a system of real veterinary-based health checks coupled to product-based discounts on pet food, pet insurance, and veterinary care.
Unlike the Kennel Club, this new registry would have no historical baggage to tote, and would not have to pay homage to petulant prigs and screaming matrons hell-bent on holding on to defective standards and misguided Victorian-era theories.
One thing is for certain: at this point in the game, the Kennel Club cannot afford to dally and play footsie with incrementalism.
The 21st Century will no longer wait for the 19th Century to catch up.
- Related Links:
** Inbred Thinking
** All at Sea at the AKC
** Is There a Kennel Club Road to Reform?
** The Kennel Club at the Crossroads
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4 comments:
Gotta say that I think you're wrong on the "barbie" collie, assuming you mean rough and smooth collies. I know of a number of breeders who have dogs that, yes, are shown in confirmation, but who also have dogs with herding and agility titles and sometimes they are the same dog. I think that, for whatever reason, the rough and smooth collies have faired better health-wise than many other breeds, which are absolutely genetic train wrecks. It breaks my heart every time I see a GSD or a bulldog.
That said, keep after the AKC!!!
An AKC herding test is pretty far from real work. It's so far from real work, in fact, that it's not in the same time zone, or on the same planet.
Remember that we run a lot of sheep in this country (1,000+ animal herds out west and no fence in the entire County), and the same can be said for Canada, Australia, England, Scotland, Wales, France, Spain, etc.
It's a big world, and I am willing to bet nowhere on it are AKC collies of any kind being used to herd sheep that are taken to market in a commercial operation.
A few pet sheep moved around within a 1, 2 or 3 acre fence? Sure -- you can train a Jack Russell to do that.
I think it says a lot that the herding course size for the AKC "A: set up is 200 feet by 400 feet at the maximum. To put a point in it, 200 by 400 feet is just 80,000 square feet. An acre of land is 43,560 square feet. Wow! Not much "herding" going on at an AKC herding "A" trial, eh? It's ridiculous -- less than 2 acres of land at the maximum.
Of course an AKC herding "test" is done in an even smaller space -- 100 feet by 200 feet at the maximum. That's less than a half acre!
But I am willing to be wrong. Can you really find a true sheep man (open range sheep being raised for market, not pen raised pets kept to be herded) who is trusting his flock movement to an AKC "Barbie" Collie? Can you find 10 such people?
To extend the point, let me also say that AKC "go to ground" trials are pretty far from real terrier work in a natural earth with a wild animal in the ground and man or woman digging on top. You can get a bull terrier down a wooden AKC go to ground tunnel!
Is there even one AKC terrier of any breed that was dug to 30 times last year? Dug to ten times? Five times?
Now look at the race track. Any AKC greyhounds there? Nope. You cannot breed for speed and breed for looks too. The only dog that was ever a successful cross-over from track to show (or vice versa) that I know of was a dog named God Speed Qui Tam. Such a rare event, I know the dead dog's name!
And so it goes down the line. Yes, a pack of Poodles ran the Iditarod, but look at the dogs that are not publicity stunts, and you are not finding AKC. There's a reason Greenland will not allow dogs to be imported to that country -- they don't want Kennel Club dreck messing up their gene pool of genuine pulling dogs!
P.
Thank God (the one of the Church of Field and Stream) for groups like the JRTCA who stand staunch against the AKC.
Beware the Parson Russell Terrier. We will be able to watch and mourn its destruction by fools.
I was buying a pair of running shoes and was helped by an athletic young man who mentioned he wanted a Boston Bull to run with. I told him of a little JRT at the local shelter who is actually marked like a BBT (too much black but a doll none the less). I do hope he takes my advice for a $100 healthy dog, instead of a diseased $600 monstrocity.
Debi and the TX JRTs (who can run like the wind and are going to a 5 1/2
mile walk this Sat with me in tow)
I agree with Patrick. I hunt with an AKC registered spaniel. Spaniels have been deeply unfortunate in that there is no game in town for performace competition other than the AKC. The retrievers have NAHRA and the Pointers have NSTRA and NAVDA in addition to the AKC. Spaniels are stuck.
Perhaps because of this, Springer spaniels show that greatest divergence between hunting and conformation lines of any dog. They are no longer the same dog.
The AKC Field Trial (not hunt test) remains the closest test of a dogs actual hunting work that I have seen. I hunt and help organize event for NAHRA, NSTRA, NAVDA, and AKC trials and tests for retrievers and Spaniels.
That said, even the Spaniel Field Trial is like reading the cliff's notes rather than the whole Shakespeare play. I no longer run my dog in trials and only hunt him. The last time I hunted with a friend and his trial-ready spaniels, my dog stay down for three rotations of his trial dogs. They are so used to going full speed (to impress the judges) for 6 minutes on two field trial birds that they were spent after an hour. My dog happily hunted and still had more juice to spare for the afternoon.
The answer in my mind is not necessarily the replacement of one organization for another. The answer is to discredit the concept of conformation breeding and the closed registry system.
Why shouldn't I be able to register a dog from a fantastic English Springer/ English Cocker cross? a Boykin x Springer? They do this with horses without a problem!
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