The Vanishing Pet Shop Puppy

An increasingly rare sight -- the pet shop puppy.

Los Angeles Councilmember Paul Koretz has proposed legislation to ban the sale of puppies in Los Angeles pet shops.

Excellent!  Awesome.  Now, here's a question: 

Are there really very many puppies being sold in Los Angeles?

I do not live in Los Angeles, so I cannot tell you based on experience walking around LA, but I can tell you that it's been at least two decades since I saw a puppy being sold in a pet store.
I shot out a quick email to a half dozen other dog people around the country, and they too said they had not seen a pet store puppy in years.

A little more research and I turned up a list of the top pet store chains in the country. Here they are:
.

• PetSmart:  PetSmart was the first "big-box" pet superstore chain.  Founded by John Doherty in Phoenix in 1987, it is publicly traded, and has over 1,135 stores across the country doing more than $5-billion worth of business.  It has NO puppy sales.
  .
• PETCO:   PETCO was created in 1967 but remained a California-only chain until 1987, when it hired a manager from Toys R Us to grow the chain. PETCO quickly bought up 200 smaller pet stores across the country, and today it has over 950 stores doing more than $2.5 billion in sales. It has NO puppy sales.
  .
• Pet Supplies “Plus”:  Pet Supplies “Plus” was started in Michigan and is the largest franchised pet store chain in the U.S. with 225 stores in 22 midwest and eastern states. It has NO puppy sales.
  .
• Pet Valu:  Pet Value operates in Ontario, Canada and in the Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. (mainly Pennsylvania and Delaware) and it has 350 stores. It has NO puppy sales.
  .
• Petland:  Petland once had 140 franchised stores across U.S., and is the largest pet store chain that sells puppies, but it appears to only sell puppies in a minority of stores and this chain is actually gettting smaller.  HSUS initiated a lawsuit against Petland  for puppy sales, but reports only 21 Petland stores selling puppies, and at least one of those stores has since quit the practice. Not said by HSUS:  Petland stores have placed more than 310,000 homeless pets through their stores, including over 72,000 puppies and dogs and over 230,00 kittens and cats.
  .
• Pet Supermarket:  Pet Supermarket has 115 stores in Florida and the Southeastern United States.  It has NO puppy sales.
  .
• Pet Food Express:  Pet Food Express has 34 stores in Northern California. It has NO puppy sales.
  .
• Complete Petmart:  Complete Petmart is a chain with 32 stores in Ohio and North Carolina. It has NO puppy sales..
  .
• Petland Discounts:  Petland Discounts is a small chain in New York.  It has NO puppy sales.
  .
• Pet Depot:  Pet Depot is a small franchise with less than 30 stores scattered across the U.S and Canada.  It has NO puppy sales.
  .

That's a pretty interesting list.   And, of course, it's hardly the end of the story, is it? 

Today's "big box stores" like Wal-Mart and Target (to say nothing of huge supermarket chains like Safeway, Publix, Krogers, and Food Lion), are where most people now buy their dog food, leashes, collars, dog bowls, dog beds and even dog houses.

And then, of course, there are the online stores with deep discounts, endless variety, and ease of stay-at-home shopping:  Amazon, Drs. Foster and Smith, KV Supply, PetEdge, and the like.

Which is not to say that there are no longer pet stores that sell puppies. 

The point is that most of these operations are small outfits and are (for the most part) undercapitalized and fairly marginal businesses.

How many puppies are sold every year through these small-time pet stores? 

The simple truth is that no one knows.  

Numbers are tossed around (I will give my own best-guess in a minute based on a literature review), but for all of the anti-puppy mill web sites that exist, I could not find one that offered up a state-based list of pet stores selling puppies.  Pretty odd!

One clue as to the relative extent of pet store sales is to look at the biggest player in the business, the Hunte Corporation. 

Contrary to popular belief, Hunte does not breed its own dogs, but instead operates as a broker or "buncher" of commercially-bred dogs that are then vet-inspected, vaccinated, and trucked to pet stores across the U.S.

Hunte's top management not only sits in the American Kennel Club box at the Westminster dog show, they are such an important registrar of AKC dogs that the Kennel Club has created a computer program so their pet-store puppies can be directly registered even before they hit the parking lot.

And how much business is Hunte doing? 

The Hunte Corporation is moving about 80,000 puppies a year.

That may sound like a phenomenal amount of dogs (it is), but it helps to put a denominator on it.

In a country of about 75 million dogs, with a new-puppy acquisition rate of over 7 million dogs a year, 80,000 puppies represents less than 1.2 percent of all dog sales.

Of course the Hunte Corporation is not the only broker or supplier of pet store dogs.  Other pet store puppy suppliers include Lambriar Kennels in Kansas, Mid-America Pet Broker in Missouri, Tracy’s K & J Pets in Missouri, and Perfect Puppies in Iowa, to name just five large brokers.

So what's my best guess of total pet store puppy sales based on my own review of the literature?

My best guess is that about 250,000 puppies are sold in approximately 2,500 pet stores across the U.S.

This represents, by my calculation, less than 4 pecent of all puppy sales in the U.S. and this number is clearly coming down as more cities and towns ban pet store puppy sales altogether and as Internet sales (including on-line classified listings such as Craigslist) expand.
.
Where do pet stores sales of puppies rank on the canine "misery index" here in the U.S.?

That's a hard question.

To start, let's give a nod to the fact that most pet stores puppies are healthy and most end up in loving homes despite the fact that their purchasers are dangerously clueless people.

Most pet store puppies are up-to-snuff on their vaccines, and most move to new homes pretty quickly, and do not suffer from lack of stimulation or socialization (pet store puppies see a lot of people and other pets while on display).

Inbred? No more than any other Kennel Club dog, and probably less.

Health care testing?  Very few Kennel Club breeders health test their dogs for anything. As for the 53% of dogs in America that are mutts or crossbreeds, health tests for these animals were never even considered.

And, truth be told, some pet shop puppy brokers do a few things well.  For example, the two largest puppy brokers in the U.S. -- Hunte and Lambriar -- microchip all their puppies for lifetime identification. How many AKC breeder can say that?

So what's the problem with puppy mills dogs?

The problem is not necessarily in the store -- it's back in Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, or Pennsylvania.... out of sight, but not out of mind.

Back there, far from prying eyes, are thousands and thousands of breeder bitches warehoused in wire-bottom cages with no room to run, and little human contact or mental stimulation.

These dogs are "bred until dead."

Most Americans think this is cruelty on stilts, and I am one of them.

That said, it's worth putting a number on it.

How many misery-dams are we talking about?

Based on the number of puppies being whelped it's likely to be 50,000 to 60,000 dogs.

That's a hell of a lot of misery, but it barely scales on a graph next to the nearly one million Pit Bulls that are whelped, acquired, and then abandoned to be killed in local "shelters" by America's "pit bull lovers."  

And how does it compare next to the number of dogs languishing unloved and ignored in the back yards of countless "hobby" show dog breeders and owners across the nation?

Forgot about them, did you?  I don't!  Do you really think anyone with 20 dogs in a kennel in their backyard and a full-time day job actually does anything with those dogs more than pooper-scoop and (maybe) bathe them once in a while? 

And what of the huge number of brachycephalic breeds which struggle every day to simply breathe?

In 2006, the American Kennel Club registered over 21,000 English Bulldogs. Assuming a Bulldog only lives for 6 years (a good assumption!), that means there's at least twice as many English Bulldogs in America as there are puppy mill dams, and most of these flat-faced and heavy-headed dogs are having a hard time breathing.  How do you count that misery? 

None of this is meant to make light of puppy mills or pet shop sales. 

It is to say, however, that the scope of canine pain in the United States is a lot larger that pet shop puppies alone.

The good news is that a lot of folks are focused on pet shops and puppy mills, and problems there appear to be in decline.

But what about the rest of it?  Who will lead in these other arenas?

.

• Related Posts:
  ** Ten Tips to Finding the Right Dog
  ** Hump and Dump Dog Breeders
  ** The AKC is Front and Center at the Dog Auctions
  ** The AKC's Long Love Affair With Puppy Mills
  ** Battery Cage Dogs are the AKC's Cash Machine
  ** AKC Chairman Sees Three Options for Revenue
  ** Hunte Corporation: Pushing AKC Puppy Mill Pets
  ** Breed Clubs Do Not Run the AKC: Money Does
  ** Who Speaks for the Dogs?
  ** Puppy Mills, Veterinary Bills and the AVMA
  ** Some Rights Flow From Responsibilities
  ** Start Your Own Internet Puppy Peddler Site!
  ** Start Your Own Puppy Mill!
  .
• Note:  This post is a recreation of a post that was deleted during a 30-hour nation-wide Google Blogger outage.  Posts and comments were supposed to be restored, but that has not happened yet so I pulled this from the email bin on my computer.  Apologies for lost comments; the old posts  and comments may yet come back in which case I will delete this version.
  .

Dogs In America Today

Before Chris Hansen was catching pedophiles and predators, he was catching puppy mill peddlers, and those who wink at puppy mill misery.

Watch this whole piece, which Chris Hansen put together for NBC's Dateline back in 2000.

Nothing much has changed.

In fact, things are actually a little bit worse, as I will explain.

Because most folks will not take the time to watch the whole 45-minute video, I have appended an excerpt below, which shows the unblinking reaction of Ron DeHaven, the man in charge of puppy mill inspection at the U.S, Department of Agriculture.





Ron DeHaven, of course, is now head of the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA).

As for Petland, puppy mills, and the AKC (see the entire Dateline piece here), they are still in bed with each other right up to their eyeballs.

In fact, the AKC has even created special software for Petland so that Petland's puppy mill dogs can be sold even faster under the auspices of the AKC.

And is the AKC still in bed with puppy mills? Absolutely.

In fact, AKC Chairman Ron Menaker says the AKC has always been in bed with puppy mills, and that it's financial future depends on being in bed with "high volume breeders," because dog shows actually lose money for the AKC.

Yes, that's right, "misery puppies" have to die so that people can go on collecting rosettes and ribbons at dog shows.

Nice!

This is the American Kennel Club (AKC).

This is the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA).

This is the the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

This is puppy mills.

This is Petland.

And this is dogs in America today.
.

AKC Loves Puppy Mills ... and the Naïve

The Missouri Puppy mill featured in the video clip, above, is considered a "Blue Ribbon Kennel," and is part of the Missouri Department of Agriculture's "Elite Puppy Program" which it runs in conjunction with the Missouri Pet Breeder's Association.

The American Kennel Club is a proud platinum member of the Missouri Pet Breeders Association.

This is the part of the AKC that the American Kennel Club does not want you to know about -- that they work hand in hand with the puppy mill industry.

And the AKC's relationship with the pupy mill industry is not a small thing either -- it is a vital part of the Americal Kennel Club's financial operation. It is where the money comes from.

Over at The Canine Chronicle, Gretchen Bernardi has written about her five years of working with the "High Volume Breeders Committee" of the American Kennel Club.

The High Volume Breeders Committee is the AKC's new name for what used to be called a puppy mill.

For those who have not followed the AKC's long involvement in the puppy mill business, here's a quick summary:

• While the American Kennel Club has always put itself out there as an "elite" organization of elite people and elite dogs, the facts are quite the opposite. A huge chunk of the money that finances the American Kennel Club, and an astounding number of dogs, come from commercial puppy mill breeders.
  
  
• The AKC puppy mill connection first came out in the press in the late 1980s thanks to a handful of defecting staff. Prior to that time the AKC simply ignored questions about puppy mill registrations, lied about it, or gave deflecting answers.
  


• With the rapid rise of genetic defects within some Kennel Club breeds, the issue of negative genetic loads and genetic bottle necks came to the forefront of discussion on internet list-servs and bulletin boards. Vocal breed club members began to demand that the AKC keep better track of paperwork, and that they stop winking at puppy mills that cranked out a hundreds dogs a year from a single sire.
  


• The AKC's implementation of a Frequently Used Sire program, along with some increased inspections of commercial breeding facilities, resulted in the Missouri Pet Breeders Association boycotting the AKC and switching most of their registries over to the no-questions-asked, American Pet Registry which originates in Arkansas.



• Over the space of six years – from 1999 through 2006 – AKC registrations dropped by 250,000 dogs as increasing numbers of puppy millers ditching the AKC.
  


• The loss of puppy mill income precipitated a cash crisis for the AKC. You see, the American Kennel Club depends on puppy mill money to finance their expensive building on Madison Avenue and their money-losing dog shows, as well as their staff travel, pre-and post-Westminster dog show parties and the like.
  


• What to do? The answer, of course, was to woo the puppy mill trade back, and so the "High Volume Breeders Committee" was created. This was the old puppy mill business with a new (and not too transparent) name.
  


• The first meeting of the High Volume Breeders Committee was held in September 2001.

In her article, Gretchen Bernardi notes that since 2001, the AKC has not increased the inspection and investigation staff of high volume breeders, and has simply ignored eight of the nine committee members who sought to get the puppy millers to "raise the bar" and change their way of doing business.

Instead of trying to get the puppy mill world to change, the AKC has joined them. The American Kennel Club is now a platinum member of the Missouri Pet Breeders, the very organization which launched the boycott against it back in 2000.

In addition, notes Ms. Bernardi, the AKC has removed the “do not buy puppies from a pet shop” advice from its website.

Andrew Hunte, founder of the Hunte Corporation, the largest commercial puppy mill broker in the U.S. was invited to sit in the AKC box at Westminster.

Then, in 2005, the AKC entered into a contractual arrangement with Petland, the largest outlet for Hunte puppy mill dogs in the U.S.

This deal was only abandoned after a massive protest by dog owners, but the AKC continues to register puppy mill puppies, continues to register pet shop dogs, and continues to give discounts to high volume breeders.

And, of course, now there is a direct web link from the Hunte Corporation (supplier of pet store dogs) to the AKC's web site.

In August of 2007, the AKC unanimously passed a resolution “to direct management to aggressively pursue the registration of every AKC registerable dog and to actively welcome any breeder or owner who is willing to abide by all AKC rules, regulations, and policies.”

In short, do whatever it takes to make nice with the puppy millers. The AKC needs the money!

Related Posts on this blog:

4 The AKC Embraces the "Big Wink" of Misery Pups
4 Breed Clubs Do Not Run the AKC: Money Does
4 The AKC Signs Contract With Puppy Mill Distributor
4 Inbred Thinking

.

Ervin Raber, the fellow named in the ad above, runs the Buckeye Dog Auction at the Holmes County Amish Flea Market in Walnut Creek, Ohio.

The fact that he is a bundler for Hunte tells you everything you need to know about Hunte, and the fact that Hunte is in bed with the AKC tells you everything you need to know about the AKC.

To see where the Buckeye Dog Auction dogs come from, see these pictures of Holmes County dog breeders.

To find out when the next Buckeye Dog Auction is going to be, click here,

.

The End of Groundhog Day is the Beginning of Hope

I got a short email the other day saying that a line from a Barack Obama speech -- "We are the ones we have been waiting for" -- is actually an "old Hopi Indian saying."

I call "bullshit" on almost all old Indian sayings. Most of these "poster perfect" quotes were first written by Hollywood film writers in the 1970s. Let's not drink too deeply from the well of mythological 19th Century native American prose poets, eh?

Maria Shriver launched the phrase into the Obama campaign a few weeks ago. Apparently she was the first person to suggest it was an "old Hopi Indian" saying. In fact, the actual origin of the phrase is not deeply hidden: It's the title of a book by Alice Walker who lifted it from her friend June Jordan, who first used it in a "Poem for South African Women."

It may be entirely coincidental that Barack Obama's first entry into organizing for political change was in the arena of divestment from South Africa.

At the time, Barack was a sophmore at Occidental College in California, and he was contacting members of the African National Congress to speak on campus, drafting letters to faculty, printing up flyers, and arguing strategy.

In his autobiography, written 13 years ago, he notes that "I noticed that people had begun to listen to my opinions. It was a discovery that made me hungry for words."

For a person hungry for words, writer June Jordan was not a bad person to turn to.

Like Barack, June Jordan sought to put her life in context, and while doing that, she was drawn to the commonalities between all of us, and the responsibility we all have to make the world a better place. She wrote:

"My life seems to be an increasing revelation of the intimate face of universal struggle. You begin with your family and the kids on the block, and next you open your eyes to what you call your people, and that leads you into land reform into Black English, into Angola, leads you back to your own bed where you lie by yourself, wondering if you deserve to be peaceful, or trusted or desired or left to the freedom of your own unfaltering heart. And the scale shrinks to the size of a skull: your own interior cage.

"And then if you’re lucky, and I have been lucky, everything comes back to you. And then you know why one of the freedom fighters in the sixties, a young Black woman interviewed shortly after she was beaten up for riding near the front of the interstate bus –– you know why she said, ‘We are all so very happy’? It’s because it’s on. All of us and me by myself: We’re on."

Alice Walker was friends with June Jordan, and she borrowed June's poetic line for the title of her own book of essays entitled "We are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For."

In the introduction to that book, Alice Walker tries to compress the larger idea encapsulated in the phrase. She begins:

"It is the worst of times. It is the best of times. Try as I might I cannot find a more appropriate opening for this volume: it helps tremendously that these words have been spoken before and, thanks to Charles Dickens, written at the beginning of A Tale of Two Cities. Perhaps they have been spoken, written, thought, an endless number of times throughout human history.

"It is the worst of times because it feels as though the very Earth is being stolen from us, by us: the land and air poisoned, the water polluted, the animals disappeared, humans degraded and misguided. War is everywhere.

"It is the best of times because we have entered a period, if we can bring ourselves to pay attention, of great clarity as to cause and effect. A blessing when we consider how much suffering human beings have endured, in previous millennia, without a clue to its cause. Gods and Goddesses were no doubt created to fill this gap.

"Because we can now see into every crevice of the globe, and because we are free to explore previously unexplored crevices in our own hearts and minds, it is inevitable that everything we have needed to comprehend in order to survive, everything we have needed to understand in the most basic of ways, will be illuminated now. We have only to open our eyes, and awaken to our predicament. We see that we are, alas, a huge part of our problem. However: We live in a time of global enlightenment. This alone should make us shout for joy.

"[....] It was the poet June Jordan who wrote 'We are the ones we have been waiting for.'

"Sweet Honey in the Rock turned those words into a song. Hearing this song, I have witnessed thousands of people rise to their feet in joyful recognition and affirmation.

"We are the ones we’ve been waiting for because we are able to see what is happening with a much greater awareness than our parents or grandparents, our ancestors, could see.

"This does not mean we believe, having seen the greater truth of how all oppression is connected, how pervasive and unrelenting, that we can 'fix' things.

"But some of us are not content to have a gap in opportunity and income that drives a wedge between rich and poor, causing the rich to become ever more callous and complacent and the poor to become ever more wretched and humiliated. Not willing to ignore starving and brutalized children. Not willing to let women be stoned or mutilated without protest. Not willing to stand quietly by as farmers are destroyed by people who have never farmed, and plants are engineered to self-destruct. Not willing to disappear into our flower gardens, Mercedes Benzes or sylvan lawns.

"We have wanted all our lives to know that Earth, who has somehow obtained human beings as her custodians, was also capable of creating humans who could minister to her needs, and the needs of her creation. We are the ones."

When I first read those lines, standing up in the aisle of a book store while skimming fronts and backs of books to find something worth reading, a little light went on in the back of my head.

"Ah! Condorcet!" I thought. Alice Walker was channeling the Marquis de Condorcet.

Condorcet was a French philosopher, mathematician, and sociologist, and a leading figure in the French Enlightenment.

In his last and most famous essay, entitled an "Essay on the Progress of the Human Spirit," written just before his death in 1775, Condorcet argued that science, reason, and education, together with the principles of political liberty and equality, would soon lead humanity into a new era of happiness.

Condorcet said he thought economic and social progress in developing countries would spring forward much faster than it had in Europe because these less advanced countries would have the European model of success to emulate and copy.

Condorcet argued that:

"The progress of these peoples [folks in undeveloped countries overseas] is likely to be more rapid and certain than our own because they can receive from us everything that we have had to find out for ourselves, and in order to understand those simple truths and infallible methods which we have acquired only after long error, all that they need to do is to follow the expositions and proofs that appear in our speeches and writings."

I short, Condorcet recognized that, thanks to the printing press, increased literacy, and the declining cost of books, knowledge was finally accumulating, and could now be passed across time and space.

Human were no longer doomed to live "Groundhog Day" over and over again.

Progress was not only possible, but it would become more rapid, Backwards regions of the world would leapfrog over 5,000 years of things that did not work.

Condorcet argued that someday:

"A very small amount of ground will be able to produce a great quantity of supplies of greater utility or higher quality; more goods will be obtained for a smaller outlay; the manufacture of articles will be achieved with less wastage in raw materials and will make better use of them.... So not only will the same amount of ground support more people, but everyone will have less work to do, will produce more, and satisfy his wants more fully."

Condorcet anticipated this abundance would lead to increased population growth, but he also believed that people would engage in voluntary family planning as incomes, education and knowledge rose.

Was Condorcet Right?

Basically, yes.

As Condorcet anticipated, shared knowledge across time and space has dramatically boosted both agricultural production and personal income, with "each successive generation" amassing "larger possessions ... as a result of this progress."

As Condorcet anticipated, the spread of democracy has increased across the globe, and modern societies across the world have embraced Social insurance "safety nets" to protect the poor and aged -- just as he predicted.

Condorcet argued that improving the status of women and making investments in female education were critical to economic and social development. This is now widely accepted all over the world, even among social conservatives.

Condorcet anticipated that increased food production, combined with a rise in international trade and an increase in personal wealth, would result in an increase in the number of people on earth. This too has occurred as he predicted.

Most remarkably, Condorcet argued that in time population growth would slow as people came to understand that the greater good was not in making more people, but in making more happy people.

The kind of voluntary slowing of population growth that Condorcet predicted has occurred in Europe, Canada, the United States, Japan, and increasing numbers of developing countries (Korea, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Iran, Brazil, etc.)

Indeed, across the globe today, nearly half of all the people on earth are now living in countries that have replacement level fertility rates or less.

OK, but what is new here?

Why are "WE" the people we have been waiting for?

The answer, as Alice Walker suggests, is that this current generation "has entered into a period of great clarity into cause and effect."

What has happened to information in the last 15 years is a quantum leap forward unimaginable even 20 years ago, and unprecedented in human evolution.

It is Condorcet on steroids and stilts.

You are part of that great leap right now. Not only is this little missive instantly posted and available to hundreds of millions of people around the world with a mere push of a key, but it is also available at no cost to them, and at no cost to me.

Along with the written word, this post provides links to source material, pictures, and even video.

If you want more information on some obscure point, you can get it by simply going to Google and posting a simple query.

What is particularly amazing is that this technology is not not captive to a few rich people in a few well-placed countries.

Easter Island now has three Internet cafes, and spam email from Nigeria and Ghana are commonplace.

The small town of Obama, Japan is following the current U.S. election cycle like it's a local event.

Inside our computers, the bits and pieces of our hard drives and mother boards come from Malaysia, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Mexico and El Salvador. When I run into computer trouble, I call Dell Tech Support ... in India.

And it's not just the big players that have an international reach. This little blog (entirely free to create in a world where water costs $2 a bottle) is visited by several thousand people a day. In the last 9 months it has registered visitors from over 180 countries.





This is all pretty amazing stuff. The Internet, if nothing else, has become a great equalizer. You no longer have to be rich, live in an urban area, or have a high-powered job to be heard.

Today, even in rural America, if you have discipline and time, you can be as well-read as anyone on earth.

Perhaps more importantly, you can find people around the world who have similar interests to yours, no matter how obscure or off-beat they might be.

And, of course, all of use are now free to use the Internet to build social consciousness, and to organize other people into action.

This is what lies ahead. This is the change we have been waiting for.

I do not expect anyone will fall down and grab their brain at reading these observations. Most of what I have said here is old hat, and has been said before (and much better) by others.

What we may not realize, however, is that the change is already on and impacting even small areas we have a personal interest in.

Over at the Pet Connection blog, Gina Spadafori recently noted that the investigation into the Menu Foods dog food poisonings, the rise of the No-Kill Movement, and the backlash against the AKC's financial relationships with the puppy mill industry, have all been connected by a common thread -- the power of the internet.

Twelve years ago, these kinds of groundswells did not exist because the Internet, as we know it today, did not exist.

Something huge has happened since then, and the wave of change is still building.

The riptide of information, social consciousness and community creation that is occurring today is almost more than Condorcet could have predicted.

Only in the last few years, with the rise of independent web sites, online newspapers, blogs, Internet lists-servs, email, online books, and free telephone connections has it been possible to not only get informed about everything, but also to take action on all those things we think are most important.

Only in the last few years have "We, the people" had the power to educate ourselves, inform others, and organize movements without the benefit of massive direct mail budgets.

We are, of course, still very low on the learning curve. We are discovering the power of the technology, but we are also learning its limits as well.

The same technology that makes it easy for two million Americans to send an email message to the U.S. Forest Service, also makes it easy for the U.S. Forest Service to discount those messages and wipe them off their servers with the push of a key.

And so, we must have no illusion: We may be able to get informed and get organized using the Internet, but information and organization alone are not going to force change.

Change does not come from a mouse click alone.

America's collapsing infrastructure will not be rebuilt by email; it will take tax dollars and iron workers, poured concrete and municipal bonds. We will have to suit up for that.

Our inner city schools cannot be turned around so long as city planners think a new sports arena is an economic asset, and a new school is a tax burden. We will have to show up and demand new priorities.

If we want manufacturing jobs to return, we will have to stop giving tax incentives to companies relocating to slave-labor countries overseas. And yes, we will have to pay up if we want more things made in the U.S.A.

If we want more construction jobs to go to American workers, we will have to limit immigration so wages and working conditions in that sector rise high enough to attract American workers. We will have to speak up for that.

The point here is that there is no free lunch.

If we decide to go to war, then we need to recognize that there will be dead and wounded soldiers, and there will be a tax increase too.

It will not be enough to put a "Support Our Troops" sticker on the back of your SUV.

Change, in short, will not come with a mouse click, but with movement.

We will have to move off the couch in order to get to the voting booth.

We will have to move out of our comfort zone in order to attend rallies and demonstrations.

We will have to move off our ass in order to get out our check book.

We will have to stand up for change.

And yes, we will have to sacrifice. Great things always take great effort.

Will America be willing to sacrifice?

That remains to be seen. Things are always easier in the abstract.

The Bush Administration was eager to get the nation into a war, but they did not send their own children to the front lines, did they?

Everyone agrees that our bridges need repair, but no one is standing in line to foot the bill.

Yes, the nation needs immigration reform, but who wants to pay $150 for half a day's worth of maid service?

And yes, it's really horrible that the American Kennel Club's closed registry system has wrecked so many breeds, but folks still demand AKC papers.

And so we stand on the edge. Change is on the horizon, but it's not quite there yet, is it? In every room where six people are now saying "yes we can," there are least three others thinking "no we can't."

Yet there is hope. History is on our side. When called to action, America has shown up in the past. We will show up again. But we need to be asked.

Where is the call for a national program to develop a 200-mile-per-gallon vehicle?

Instead of that, we were told to buy a roll of duct tape and go shopping.

Where is the call to rebuild our inner city schools and staff them with competent teachers?

Instead of that, we got pictures of Barbara Bush reading to children.

It has been such a long time since we had a leader who called us to action, that most of us cannot remember the experience.

Has it occurred in your lifetime? Perhaps not.

And yet there is hope. America is not a fundamentally different place than it was 60 years ago. We are still Americans, and if called to action for a good cause, we will join up.

But who will call us?

Is there anyone out there who seriously thinks Hillary Clinton can do that?

Is there anyone out there who seriously thinks John McCain can do that?

These are politicians from another era.

They are the same old tired Washington politicians who continue to believe it's OK for nameless, faceless, people meeting in secret to decide our fate.

But we are now entering a new era, and it is not an era in which "super delegates" will hold sway.

We the people no longer need bankers, oligarchs and country club pundits to get out the message and organize us for change.

We are the ones we have been waiting for. And now it's on all of us.

Border Collie Owners Battle What Doesn't Work

In 1848, Queen Victoria was introduced to working Collies at Balmoral Castle. She became captivated by these intelligent dogs and brought a few back with her to London, where they became the rage -- hitting center stage just as the first dog shows were starting to take off in the U.K.

With the rise of organized dog shows between 1860 and 1890, a show standard was written up for the Collie by John Henry Walsh (aka "Stonehenge"), a man who himself did not own or work Collies, but who felt himself expert enough in nearly every breed of dog to write a standard by which they could be judged by appearance alone.

Needless to say, dogs were soon being bred to this "standard," which assigned large numbers of points to head shape and size, coat length, and coat color.

A Collies ability to actually work sheep or take commands was not allotted a single point.


A Border Collie rides herd on sheep in a chute.


In 1893, the fate of the Collie took another bad turn when the very young Czar Nicholas II sent 15 Borzois to the aged Queen Victoria. Intended as a diplomatic gift to curry favor with an aged dog collector who also happened to be his wife's grandmother, the Borzois more than left their mark, as they were soon crossed with Queen Victoria's Collies, thereby helping to create the strange-looking, impossibly narrow-headed dog we now know as "the Lassie" Rough-coated Collie.

By the 1920s, these non-working and narrow-headed Collies appeared to be a different breed from the working Collies found in rural parts of Scotland, Wales and the rest of the British Isles.

While the show dogs were increasingly homogeneous, the working dogs were of varied sizes and colors. Some had short coats and prick ears, others had longer coats and folded ears. The dogs themselves ranged from 25 to 75 pounds, and they came in a wide variety of colors from brown or red, to black and white, from dappled Merle to various hues of gun metal gray. In fact, almost the only thing all these dogs had in common was an obsessive devotion to work created by breeding worker-to-worker for generations.

"Big one, little one, handsome one, ugly ones, long-coated, short-coated: nobody gave a damn. How's his outrun? Can he read sheep? Can he move a rank old cow?"
. . . . - Don McCaig, Dog Wars

Needless to say, these were not the kind of questions being asked by the folks at The Kennel Club shows!

As a result of divergent selection criteria -- working ability versus conformation -- the smart, working, heterogeneous collies that had been so admired by Queen Victoria in 1848, were systematically selected out of The Kennel Club gene pool in favor of more homogeneous conformation stock.

Could these pretty show dogs herd a cat across a living room? Perhaps, but no one had much illusion that they would be of any real use on a mountain side with 500 head of semi-wild sheep to pen before an approaching storm. Shepherds looked elsewhere for their working dogs.

But what did that matter? How many people really had sheep to pen? Never mind that the sheep and the hill created the Collie. How could a dog be harmed if it still looked good? A non-working Collie could be bred to a non-working Collie, and it would still chase a stick. What else was needed?

In fact, by The Kennel Club's light, what mattered was not the dog, but the name. And so, in 1924, when the International Sheep Dog Society (ISDS) brought working Collies to Hyde Park for a sheepdog trial, The Kennel Club objected. How could these feral-looking dogs be called Collies, they demanded!? They had no resemblance at all to the dogs in The Kennel Club ring!

"Fine," the ISDS replied, and promptly began calling their working dogs by a new name: "Border Collies," to differentiate them from their non-working Kennel Club cousins.


A Border Collie at Crufts: a bored animal at a dog show started by a man that never owned a dog.


Much the same story played out with working Fox Terriers at about this same period of time (complete with Queen Victoria in a supporting role).

Here too a breed of working dog, was quickly wrecked by Kennel Club breeders focused on pure conformation standards within a closed-registry system.

And here too, the true working dog continued to live on in the countryside under a different name -- the Jack Russell Terrier.

Move forward 100 years, and the tale plays out anew, as the Kennel Club bureaucracy circles back to try to round up two popular working dog breeds that somehow (how?) slipped out of sight and off their roles.

"The Border Collie? The Jack Russell Terrier? Oh, we must have them."

Never mind that these dogs had already been pulled onto the Kennel Club roles. By now the Kennel Clun dogs were ruined beyond recognition and operating under a different name. Time to try again!

It is here, at the start of the Second Battle for the Border Collie that Virginia sheep man and writer Don McCaig begins his tale in The Dog Wars: How the Border Collie Battled the American Kennel Club.

In its simplest form, McCaig's book is a battle between what works and what doesn't.

On one side you have the American Kennel Club -- a 19th Century organization driven by 19th Century genetic theories and an almost Kremlin-like bureaucracy in New York City. These people have the strange notion that all canine breeds can best be judged at a glance while trotting a dog around a ring on a thin string leash.

On the other side, you have a small collection of not-too-sophisticated farmers and sheep dog trialers; the very people who made the working collie what it is. These folks may not own a tuxedo or ball dress, but by God they know two true things; 1) that the show ring has never made a working dog, and; 2) that the mettle of a Border Collie can only be determined on the hill while working cattle, sheep or goats.

The fact that McCaig is a partisan in this war does not mean he has not written a fair book.

In fact, he is more than fair.

While he mentions some of the breeds ruined by the Kennel Club's love affair with closed registries and show ring standards, he does not catalogue them (or their ills) to the extent he could.

Nor does McCaig open up both barrels in order to blast the AKC' for their sordid history as puppy mill profiteers.

Instead, McCaig's book focuses on the straight-forward history of the "Border Collie War" of the 1990s, leavening historical chronology with short divergent tales of his own working dogs, Silk, Moose and Harry.

McCaig does a pretty fair job of puncturing the American Kennel Club lie that they "only register dogs," and that it is individual breeders -- not AKC policies -- that are responsible for the general decline in pure-breed quality and performance.

In fact, McCaig notes, the Kennel Club does far more than register dogs. It also mandates that all AKC breed be maintained in a closed registry which almost guarantees mounting levels of inbreeding.

The AKC also prohibits performance tests as a requirement of winning a championship, and they will not allow a club to ban puppy mill or pet store registrations which are a large part of the AKC's bread-and-butter business plan.

The staff of the AKC have forced the rewriting of show standards (as they did with the Labrador Retriever), and they will not allow a breed club to mandate a health check as a condition of registration, even if the breed has a serious, pervasive, debilitating, gene-based health care issue such as deafness, cataracts or dysplasia.

In fact, as McCaig makes clear, the AKC is really not interested in power-sharing with a strong breed club. If a strong breed club already exists outside the AKC, they are not willing to do much to woo its support in order to have them join the AKC.

It's much easier -- and safer -- to simply create a new club from whole cloth; a simple matter of finding a few dozen people who are anxious to "get in on the ground floor" with a new AKC breed.

These new AKC converts are likely to already believe that dog shows are the beginning-and-end-all in the world of dogs.

What does it matter that geneticists have said that the AKC's breeding scheme is unsound and bad for working dogs? They will be careful and breed smart.

So what if the AKC is a major engine driving the puppy mill and pet shop trade of dogs? If the AKC was not pocketing the cash, someone else would.

And who really needs working dogs any more anyway? Sheep herding with dogs is an anachronism, and fox hunting has been banned in the U.K. The modern world is all about fly-ball, agility, and Frisbee. If the dogs have a little less obsession and drive, they will still be fine for that.

And, so the AKC charges ahead and does what it wants.

When the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Club (founded in 1954) turned down AKC overtures because the AKC would not allow their Club to deny membership and registration to puppy millers and breeders that sold their dogs to pet shops, the AKC simply created its own Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Club to compete.

When the Border Collie folks said they would greenlight AKC admission only if there was a performance standard, the AKC would have none of it.

When the Jack Russell Terrier folks opposed a too-limited conformation standard and maintenance of the breed in a closed registry system with no limits on coefficients of inbreeding, the AKC simply rounded up a collection of breeders who cared more about blue ribbons and green cash than the future of this working dog.

McCaig gives a nod to these other dog battles, of course, but his concern is the Border Collie.

McCaig details an AKC in which both officials and staff are secretive, arrogant and clannish. They think nothing of omitting facts, telling lies, and stretching the truth. When asked to explain their intentions, they become a collection of Know Nothings, and when asked to sit down to see if common ground can be found, they express outrage that -- after 100 years of wrecking dogs -- the entire world is not willing to roll over and give them the benefit of the doubt on their say-so alone.

After all, they will tell you, they are the experts on dogs. What, you don't believe it? Well, just ask any of their all-breed judges who claim they can judge the value of a sheep-working dog at 40 feet, never mind that they themselves have never seen a sheep.

Ask any one of the terrier judges who have never dug four feet to a fox, or carried a shovel out of their own backyard.

You want to to know about whippets and greyhounds? Well the AKC has experts on chasing plastic bags on a string. Who would know more about running dogs than people with experience like that?

Though McCaig's book is brutal in its accounting, his tone is generally dispassionate and he sticks to the facts.

In fact, I would argue that McCaig's book is actually generous to the American Kennel Club.

Recognizing that the organization is behaving irrationally -- spending money to lose money, winking at puppy mills, capriciously changing breed standards, and ignoring the wishes of both breed clubs and dog owners alike, he wonders what is going on. How could people, whom he generously supposes are neither evil nor stupid, be so terribly misguided?

He dismisses the notion that it's all about money. He says it is not -- in discussions with the AKC they never mention money, and they seem offended that anyone would suggest theirs is a business (never mind the Madison Avenue offices, high salaries, black-tie galas, and plethora of cross-promotional activities with dog food companies, veterinarians, and dog toy manufacturers).

McCaig generously suggests that the AKC is guided by something else -- a vision that can best be described as religious in nature, since it seems to operate both independent of fact and based on faith alone.

And what is that faith? McCaig writes:

"Throughout the fight, I kept stumbling over a simple truth without quite seeing it: dog fanciers and their creature, the AKC, really do believe that what is most valuable about any dog can be judged in the show ring, that the show ring is the sole legitimate purpose and reward for all dog breeding. They even believe, against all evidence, that the show ring 'improves' breeds."

And, to give credit, McCaig cuts them a little slack about their belief system. He even tries to identify in -- at least a little bit.

"The AKC's faith in the show ring is no more implausible than the fourth-century creed I recite every Sunday in the Williamsville Presbyterian Church."

McCaig goes on to note that while AKC dog show folks really do believe a dog is all about looks, the AKC staff is motivated by something else in their eternal quest to pull ever-more breeds into the AKC show ring.

"When AKC staffers argued with traditionalists that they should abandon their venerable snobberies and recognize every breed they could, the staffers were just doing what staffers have done since the time of the pharaohs; increase their importance by swelling their organization."

And so, in the end, McCaig tries to humanize the AKC. He does not forgive them their lies, their pettifoggery, or for what they have done to the Border Collie and other working breeds, but he does try to see the world through their eyes.

Unfortunately, it's still not a pretty picture.

One big issue seems to be that the staff of the AKC feels that their power in the world of dogs is slipping from their fingers.

The United Kennel Club already registers more breeds, and other for-profit dog registries are popping up left and right.

The American Press Corps (from Time magazine to ABC's 20/20) have informed everyone that AKC dogs are more likely to have specific genetic defects than run-of-the-mill pound puppies.

And with their recent disastrous attempt to form an alliance with Petland, everyone now knows that a huge portion of AKC's bottom line comes from the registration fees pocketed from the sale of "misery puppies" cranked out by commercial puppy mill breeders.

Slowly, the glow is coming off the rose. So what to do?

Well of course, your double down your efforts and continue doing the same thing! Isn't that so often the way?

So how does it all end?

When the smoke and fog of war lifted, it turned out that both sides had lost the Border Collie War.

The Border Collie had lost because they were now just one more dog within the American Kennel Club where they were to be judged on looks alone rather on the brains, obsessive drive, and bidability that make them truly unique in the world of dogs.

The American Kennel Club lost because they not only activated a permanent (and growing) base of opposition outside of the AKC, but also because the public was apparently not deceived by their shennaningans. Ten years after the Border Collie were first drawn into the AKC, that organization registers only 2,000 border collies annually; only a tenth of the dogs the American Border Collie Association registers.

And while McCaig notes that the AKC has twice the number of herding trial events as the American Border Collie Association, the AKC events are poorly attended because "ordinary citizens seem to understand what's real and what's not."

At least for now, it seems, common sense has won out.

The same can be said in the battle for the Jack Russell. Not only is the AKC version of the dog not as popular as the AKC had hoped it would be, but it is no longer even called a Jack Russell Terrier. Meanwhile, the Jack Russell Terrier Club of America continues to prosper and thrive as the largest Jack Russell Terrier registry in the world. It's focus: to preserve and protect the Jack Russell as "first and foremost" a hunting dog.

And so, as George Santayana might have predicted, the world of working dogs has come full circle.

The AKC once again has drawn into its folds a type of working collie (and a type of working terrier too), and put them on the fast track to ruin in a closed registry system with a pure-conformation standard.

Within 50 years, these new AKC dogs will be as as close to their working cousins as chalk is to cheese, and 100 years from now, if the AKC is still around, the whole process will probably start all over again. Nonetheless, I suspect the working Border Collie and the working Jack Russell Terrier will continue to endure.

Bottom Line: Buy and read Don McCaig's new book about the battle for the Border Collie. It's a good book, and an important book. And, truth be told, there are damn few of those.



A Proposed New AKC Class: "Working Dogs Ruined by the Show Ring"


.

AKC Chairman Sees Three Options for Revenue

In closing the September AKC board meeting, Chairman Ron Menaker summarized where the AKC was coming from in terms of its funding history and its current dilemmas with Petland:

Mr. Menaker: Your Board does have responsibilities and one of those is fiduciary responsibilities, but let’s not walk out of here tonight suggesting that this staff or anybody else has come up with something that we haven’t been doing for the past 122 years. Indeed we have been registering AKC eligible puppies from Petland, and every other company selling AKC registrable puppies. We have been registering those puppies and we have collected millions of dollars.

This is not a new phenomenon. What is happening is: As the registrations are going down, and many of you are screaming about why this is, our registrations have been pirated by other organizations. That means, and I’ve explained this to Gretchen this morning, that these pet shops take an AKC registrable puppy and convert it to another registry.

We need to decide whether we are going to stop registering puppies that come from these puppy brokers or Pet Shops and the like. I say “stop,” because, yes, Gretchen, we have been registering puppies from pet shops.

That’s not new. While I certainly don’t endorse brokers or pet shops selling puppies, it is a fact of life and the numbers continue to grow.

What I’m saying is there are several options. One is to make a conscious decision to no longer register “all” AKC puppies. By the way, some of them make their way to pet shops from all types of Breeders. That’s one alternative.

To tell you the truth, Judi, I would almost prefer to raise the registrations and the event fees and be able to say, “Effective next month, we are no longer going to register those puppies.”

However, not only would we lose those registrations, but we would lose a large number of potential constituents and that would impact our ability to influence legislation and over time, our numbers might simply make us just one of 23 registries. So that’s Option Number 1.

Option number 2 is we continue to register any AKC puppy — as we have been doing in the past. And please don’t make it sound like we haven’t, because the data shows we have been doing so on a large scale. However, in this option, we make no attempt to stop the pirating of those AKC registrable puppies and we allow our registry and registration dollars to simply decline.

The third option was the option that the staff was trying to present — and blame the Board; don’t blame the staff. I understand you can un-elect us. But believe me, we put our heart and soul into this sport as much as I believe you all do. Our intention was not to support or to endorse Pet Shops, but rather to stop the conversion of our AKC puppies. The fact of the matter is that pet shop AKC puppies were being registered when Judi Daniels was a director and when she was president, right, Judi? We have always been registering those puppies. Now they are getting pirated and they are ending up in other registries and they are no longer part of our AKC. The people who own them may never have an opportunity to be part of the AKC family. If bred, they are no longer part of our care and conditions.

What we have learned is that competing registries are paying bounties to convert AKC registration papers to ACA papers or the like. And all we simply did, with this recommendation from the staff, and which the Board approved 12 to 1, was to attempt to prevent this trend from continuing.

You have communicated to this Board today that you do not want us to pursue this route. Indeed, we will come up with other ways to pursue revenue shortfalls. One way is to raise fees in order that we make up for the shortfall that occurs when registrations decline. There’s no simplistic answer. We are all emotional. But the fact of the matter is there are many components to this whole issue, and there needs to be a way of dealing with it. One lady asks if they are all limited registrations? Well, the question you have to ask yourself is, did the breeders make them limited registrations? As far as I’m concerned, they ought to all be limited registrations. So the real question is: As the registrations continue to decline and as AKC puppies are converted to other registries, we have to make a decision as to whether or not we want to try to go after them, or whether or not we want to try to turn away from them and look for other sources of revenue. That’s what it boils down to.

This initiative was not to endorse or support those people or the conditions that most of us are opposed to. It was never done for that purpose. It was taken because in the past we were registering those puppies, and they accounted for a large number of our registration numbers.

In any event, I can assure you the Board has received your message. We will reconvene on that subject and you will hear back from us. I assure you, it was not a decision taken lightly, nor was there any intent to do harm to the ethics and values that most of us believe in. Thank you.

The AKC Embraces the "Big Wink" of Misery Pups

On Thursday the AKC sent out the following notice to AKC Breed Clubs representatives:

"In the past few weeks we have received many comments about this [Petland] agreement, both positive and negative. We have listened to the concerns and because this issue has become so divisive, we believe it is in the best interest of our sport and the American Kennel Club not to go forward with this initiative.
-- Ron Menaker, Chairman of the Board
-- Dennis B. Sprung, President and CEO

They received many positive comments? Really? From whom? Or is this just the flourish of the pen you do before you Eat Crow?

No matter.

Ironically, the fact that the AKC has decided to scuttle their contract with Petland changes nothing.

As the minutes of the September board meeting of the AKC make clear, the AKC has happily and purposefully derived millions of dollars every year from registering puppy mill dogs, and the Club depends on puppy mill registrations to pay the rent on its rather elaborate offices on Madison Avenue in New York City.

To the AKC's credit, it was -- at last -- putting this in the front window for everyone to see.

Now that brief shining moment of honesty is over -- it's back to the "Big Wink" again.

You see, what the membership of the AKC has NOT done is change the conduct of the AKC. The AKC will continue to knowingly register puppy mill puppies from the Hunte Corporation and from far worse commercial breeders.

The board members of the AKC and the breed club representatives to the AKC have always known that the AKC finances itself through puppy mill registrations of this type.

This information has NOT been closely held information among AKC breed club representatives.

What is being protested by the breed clubs is not the ACTION of the AKC as it relates to puppy mill registrations, but the fact that this action was being made public.

The reason the AKC feels it has to increase the number of AKC puppy mill registrations is that "events" are not paying for themselves. With rare exception, these "events" are dog shows. The net loss due to "events" is now $10 million a year, and to recover this loss the AKC will have to register 666,666 pet shop "Misery Puppies" a year at $15 each.

In short, with every AKC rosette comes a little bundle of puppy mill misery.

Now here's a question: Is it unthinkable to ask AKC event participants to simply pay their own way rather than rely on puppy mill and pet shop registrations?

Apparently.

The "per event" registration cost would have to be raised by $7 per dog just for the current show-ring deficit to be erased.

And remember, if that were done the AKC would still be giving the "Big Wink" to current levels of AKC pet shop and puppy mill registrations. My guess is that the AKC per-event fee would have to rise by an additional $15 per dog for the AKC to be able to afford to drop their endorsement (through routine registration) of puppy mill and pet shop puppies.

Gregg Barrow, a trainer of hounds, Giant Schnauzers and schutzhund dogs (among other things), sent me an email this evening asking why so many folks in the AKC have been willing to look the other way for so long.

Good question. I have spent a lot of time pondering that issue.

I am not sure I have a complete answer, but this is what I shot back to Gregg before I scurried away from the computer for the evening:

I think there are a lot of bits and pieces that have to be disaggregated in the world of dogs and hunting.

Or, to put it another way, there are a number of severable issues.

Take the dogs.

An ugly dog can hunt, but life is too short to have an ugly dog. Uglyness does not improve a dog's working ability. That said, a dog does not have to conform to a narrow set of arbitrary standards to be a pretty dog. And, ironically, a lot of pretty show ring standards (soft coats and an over-large size in terriers) are actually antithetical to work.

For a lot of people, showing dogs and hunting with dogs has nothing to do with the dogs at all.

I have come to realize that for most people, shows and hunting are a social experience. I hunt alone, but not too many people do. A fellow that hunts alone is unusual to the point of being odd.

For most folks hunting is a human bonding experience and it is the human bonding experience that they are after -- no different than golf or bridge or what have you. Added to this bonding experience is a little competition ("my buck is bigger than yours") and a slather of nature and bug spray. If all people were required to hunt alone, I think there would be a lot fewer hunters.

For most folks, the dog shows are also not about the dogs -- they are a way of socializing without getting too deeply into anyone's "stuff". When you go to a dog show, notice how many people have crated their dogs or left them in the truck while they spend hours gossiping under the tents. This is about dogs? I don't think so. At the same time, it is not about a deep personal relationship with people. Most of these folks only see each other a few times a year, and are happy to keep their relationships at that level and no deeper.

And, of course, dog shows are also a way of working out a competitive edge and achieving a pecking order. Humans are, after all, pack animals, and we have pecking orders just like dog packs and chicken flocks. Every time people "pack up" at a dog show, they have the hope of achieving a higher ranking this time around.

An additional attraction is that dog shows are a way of achieving or demonstrating an area of expertise away from home and office, and also of creating a form of self- and communal identificiation. In the world of dogs, people identify themselves as "breeders" or as flyball competitors, or agility competitors, or whatever. They identify themselves by what type of dog they have. They identify themselves as "the number one breeder of miniature dachshunds" or even as "Barney's owner."

So a lot of stuff is wrapped up in dog shows, and asking people to give that up by rejecting the nonsense espoused by the AKC is asking them to give up a lot that they have developed over the years -- their community, their identity, their hobby, and their area of expertise. They have painted themselves into an emotional corner.

For AKC breeders and dog shows folks it's hard to face all this. It's much easier to give the "Big Wink" to puppy mills and pet shops than it is to pay more money or walk away from the AKC.

Instead of listening to what is being said about the role of the AKC in keeping the puppy mill business afloat, AKC breeders and show dog enthusiasts prefer to do what little kids do: Put their fingers in their ears and begin chanting or singing until the ugly noise goes away. I cannot hear you!

To read about two breed clubs that have done it differently, and yet still manage to hold a lot of "events" and have publications that are closely read (dream on AKC Gazette) >> Read here

The Mathematics and Symbolism of Misery Puppies

At the AKC, it's not just the dogs that look alike. Here you have three ladies all dressed in red to catch the judge's eye. Judging up the leash is common at all dog shows, and the winner in the AKC is often led around by a professional handler. For more on dog show clothes for handlers (for women only, alas) see >> http://www.dog-showclothes.com/ )


As noted in the two previous posts, the American Kennel Club has decided to enter into a formal contract with Petland to encourage the registration of Hunte Corporation "puppy mill" dogs as AKC animals. As Ron Menaker, Chairman of the AKC's Board of Directors notes in the minutes of the September AKC Board meeting (link to PDF file), the AKC has been registering dubious dogs "for the past 122 years" and "we have collected millions of dollars" as a result. He goes on to further observe that "registering puppies that come from these puppy brokers or pet shops" "is not a new phenomenon."

Why does the AKC now want to snuggle up next to the puppy mill industry? The Board of the AKC is rather blunt about the problem: though the AKC made a profit of $5.7 million last year, that is not enough. A core problem, Jim Stevens Chief Financial Officer of the AKC told the board is that events "lost approximately ten million dollars in 2005. This year there have been 8,500 events to date, which was up 12 and a half percent from 2005. The total number of entries in events so far this year has been 1.8 million, which is two and a half percent above last year. Based on how the current year is shaping up, we would anticipate that this year's loss from events will be comparable to last year."

Events. That would be dog shows for those of you who are wondering. They are losing money. And so the AKC has to endorse puppy mill puppys (as they always have) in order to make up for the economic loss caused by dog show rosette chasers.

And yes, the AKC IS endorsing Petland. As AKC board member Steve Gladstone notes, "yes ... we are endorsing them with our papers. We are telling the world these people meet AKC standards."

OK, so let's see if we can do a little math here.

It costs $15 to register a puppy with the AKC. So, in order to recoup the money lost from shows, the AKC needs to register 666,666 misery puppies a year. To see what those puppies look like in a Petland stores, see this video clip taken by two idiot teenagers and loaded up to YouTube.

"In order to recoup the money lost from shows, the AKC needs to register 666,666 misery puppies a year."

To put it another way, the AKC is losing about $1,175 dollars per event (dog show), which means about 78 misery puppies need to be registered to underwrite every AKC event.

How many rosettes are awarded at an AKC event? I have no idea, and the number shifts, but I think it's safe to say that every breed and performance win requires at least one puppy mill misery puppy to be registered.

And of course, more misery puppies will have to be sold because some will not get registered. A lot of folks coming to Petland will see the "AKC registerable" sign and banners and think this is proof they are getting a quality product for their kid or themselves. But, at the cash register, these same folks may do a little math of their own. After all, the dog cost $600, and then there was the crate ($40), the leash and collar ($20), the dog tag ($7), dog food ($15), and the registration ($15). What here looks like something we can do without right at this moment? So, bottom line, there will be a lot more misery puppies sold than registered.

A core problem for the AKC is that sales of their "product" (registrations) is slipping.

What to do?

Well, I have spent a great deal of time in meeting with professional marketing geniuses, and I will tell you what they will all recommend: Develop an icon for your brand.

And I have the perfect icon in mind. Instead of awarding rosettes to the winners, perhaps the AKC could, in honor of their new Petland contract, award every winner a plush toy "Misery Puppy?" The toy would not have to be spattered in blood. It is enough that the plush toy is poorly made, and has an odd color and perhaps an odd odor. I imagine any child-labor sweat shop that makes plush toys has a whole bin of defective cast offs that can be bought for a song. In fact, "Misery Puppies" may become quite popular and, if the AKC markets them right, they can be the new symbol of the American Kennel Club.

To go with AKC tradition, the Kennel Club can even invent a history or "provenance" for their defective plush toys, just as they have with so many dog breeds.

"These plush toy are not defective," they can sniff. "They are worn and ragged because they have been loved so much. They are like the Velveteen Rabbit."

Perfect!

Now I know some people will think this is over the top, but really it isn't. After all, the causal relationship between the economics of dog shows and the economics of the Petland deal and the sale of pet store puppies has now been made clear by the minutes of the September AKC board meeting.

Now we know exactly how many Misery Puppies it takes to get an AKC rosette. And yet, the core problem remains -- the AKC is without an iconic brand.

Now they have one. Let the registration begin!

_