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Pat Szymanski, Akasta Japansese Akitas, excerpted from a post in the Akita discussion “….dedicated breeders seem to be forgotten and lost in the quest by all the new EXPERTS... None of course in the breed more than 5 years and some without showing or breeding...ONLY IN AMERICA!!!   I still say that AKC and the National Clubs had better wake up and take a stand instead of just worrying about giving a show. People that have never bred nor intend to, and have not gone to shows, nor intend too, should not have a say in the future of a breed, ANY BREED. Let them enjoy their dogs.  I, along with other good breeders, appreciate and depend on these people to provide a good home for my pet dogs, but I certainly don't want them telling me how to breed simply because they are a member of a National Club. Why should a dues fee enable anyone to have that right without experience, knowledge, dedication or intent???  How can a big mouth replace sitting up with a bitch in whelp, nursing a weak puppy, traveling all night to a show, the hours of conditioning and training, the responsibility of proper placements, and worst of all watching your old show dog age and wonder if it's time to part with them?  These things can only be felt and learned by experience, and not by someone with a spayed or neutered pet.  It just makes no sense to me. I certainly wouldn't pilot a plane just because I flew in one….” 

Pat’s point is raised every time a breed club becomes saturated with pet owners and novices, tipping the balance from a breed club to an owner’s club.  This happens when board members want to insure re-election by easily-led followers.   Bill Andrews, a guy whose comments are always succinct and piercing except when I’m watching the end of a movie, said “only in dogs can a person go out and buy a female dog and instantly be a breeder with the same rights and privileges as those who have been working hard at it for ten years.”

More and more fanciers are saying the same thing.  There has been ongoing discussion about AKC setting up a two-tiered registration system whereby the pet-bred-to-pet litters would be registered differently than the progeny of dogs that hold AKC titles.  If AKC would have listened, perhaps the commercial breeders wouldn’t have bailed out and set up their own registry.  Most show breeders thought that was great, even as AKC grappled for ways to recoup those lost millions in registrations.  The easiest solution was of course, to raise registration fees to those who stayed!  Go figure.

Other injustices slowly destroy the sport as we’ve known it.  The more AKC uses the judging approval process as a political tool, the worse it gets.  Knowing dogs nowadays has nothing to do with becoming a judge.  Instead, you must know the right people, pass an open book test, and know how to “network” for assignments.  There are now an uncomfortable number of upwardly mobile people who stand center ring selecting dogs even though they were never able to purchase a top winner.  More to the point, they could not breed selectively enough to create one.  By what right do they take money and dreams from trusting exhibitors?  By what decree do they judge the life’s work of someone like Pat Craige?  Please pass the cake.

A friend with whom I sat ringside exploded “That woman just woke up one morning and decided to become a judge.  And we pay the price!”   Not a unique observation I’ll grant you, but it was apropos after having observed the havoc she wreaked in two different breeds.  Among other incredible acts of ignorance, she awarded a major to a dog with a disqualifying fault.  Exhibitors protested and even more damaging to that breed, the judge’s award was upheld!

The sport is turning into a mockery of a once noble pursuit.  We need the new comers but we don’t need a system that allows novices to turn shows into an ego trip instead of a quest for excellence in breeding stock.  We don’t need unsuccessful breeders or handlers passing judgment on the work of experts.  We do need checks and balances.  We don’t need a game show that attracts mercenaries instead of dog people.  We have become little more than a multi-billion dollar industry feeding on dogs.  We need rewards for excellence, but are we to be regarded with the same amount of believability as wrestling??  Will exhibiting dogs remain a hobby for the average family?  Or will people discouraged by the glitzy world of shows just breed and not show, thus missing the educational opportunities afforded by attending shows?

The masses are getting hungry yet the organization we have spent a lifetime supporting has throws only a crumb while progressively ignoring its own rules and purpose for existence.  How many of you remember what that is?  This is open book so the answer is: To register (secondarily) and to compare breeding stock in a social atmosphere affordable to all who wanted to learn or improve their kennels.  Much has been written about the beginning of dog shows but from England to America, that was the sole and simple impetus for dog shows.  Why have you and I been working at establishing a line and comparing our efforts in the ring when with no agreement by US, AKC has brought into the fold, “rare breeds” and registries that fall short of representing purity of breeding or type.  Rather defeats our purpose doesn’t it?  It was of course a rhetorical question, the answer to which is that it brings in more registration money for AKC.  If you believe in Santa Claus, you may believe all the other artfully spun reasons we are given.  Why do we anxiously await the first sign of estrus in our bitch, having planned a breeding down to the inth detail?  Why indeed when for a substantial fee, AKC lets any slipshod breeder register “accidental” breedings?  AKC cannot serve two masters.  When it panders to the economics of dog breeding and goes into the merchandising of products and “expanded” services, is it serving the sport of dogs?

I flunked history but wasn’t there a governing body that once said “Let Them Eat Cake.”  I wonder what ever happened to that monarch? 

reprinted from August 2001 Magazine