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My Adventure at the AKC Delegates' Meeting

 by Roberta Pliner, New York, NY

 It started with a simple assignment to pass out ''Oppose PAWS'' flyers for the Dog Federation of Wisconsin.  (link to text of flyer below) It ended with barely escaping arrest for trespassing.   Putative complainant:  The American Kennel Club.

 This is what happened.

 As its New York representative, I was asked to distribute DFOW's ''Oppose PAWS'' flyers outside of the delegates' meeting rooms in the Crowne Plaza Times Square Hotel, shortly before Jim Holt's PAWS presentation on Monday night (September 12) and again on Tuesday morning (September 13) before the delegates' general meeting.

 To this end, I talked to two Crowne Plaza personnel to, in effect, case the joint, making sure I knew which were the correct meeting rooms and the contiguous lobby spaces where I could legitimately as a member of the public stand and give out flyers to delegates.

 The plan was to just pass out the flyers quietly and politely with a minimum of conversation with anyone.   As far as I knew, although some delegates know me as one of the Internet presences opposing PAWS (and animal rights in general), no one would recognize me by sight.   Therefore, I would be a neutral presence, just the distributor of the flyer that would speak for itself.

 Day 1: 

 Nothing turned out as I expected.   Halfway to the hotel, my cabdriver got into an argument with another cabdriver who tried to cut him off, one of them yelling in Spanish, the other in Urdu (I think).   I could not abandon the cab, because all this was taking place in the middle of four lanes of heavy traffic.....  Bienvenidos a Nueva York, but finally I arrived at the hotel, the cab fare by then almost double what it should have been.

 The hotel is designed on split levels, rather than conventional floors, making it tricky to find anything, but I found the ballroom where Mr. Holt's presentation was supposed to take place and some people already gathered sitting around and having drinks.   I pulled some flyers out of my tote bag, and worked the tables--''May I give you a flyer'',  and everyone accepted one very nicely. 

At one table, a very attractive lady said, ''You must be Roberta.''  I froze--who is this???   It was Cindy Cooke, much younger-looking and much prettier than the one photograph I saw of her somewhere.  She was the one delegate who did know I would be there and why.

I kept moving on, but while waiting for more people to show up, I found a schedule that said Mr. Holt's presentation was not in that ballroom, but on another level.   So much for casing the joint.

I finally found the right meeting place, still in plenty of time to hand out flyers before most attendees showed up.  I started again handing out flyers, all as quietly and discreetly as possible.

That lasted for about five minutes.  I heard a woman behind me screech, ''Oh, my God, Chicken Pliner's sister!!!''  Talk about the best-laid plans ''gang aft agley''.  Anyone who calls my sister, Chicken, goes way, way back to our childhood, since my sister (now a Very Important Person in Massachusetts) has spent most of her life trying to live down that nickname, and I have spent most of my life trying to avoid the ignominious designation of Chicken Pliner's sister.

There are 579 AKC delegates, none of whom I thought would recognize me by sight, but I had forgotten about Pat Laurens, old family friend, now a breeder-judge, a delegate from the German Wirehaired Pointer Club of America, and one of the most well-known and respected people in the entire dog fancy.  I should have remembered.  I rarely see her, but have followed her career, have occasionally seen her at Westminster, and I know my sister and she do keep in touch.

I was delighted to see her, of course, but that blew my cover altogether.  Pat introduced me to Patricia Haines, an AKC board member who strongly supports PAWS, and they both drew me into a ''discussion'' about PAWS.   Just what I had not planned, and I was outflanked, two to one, plus not getting my flyers distributed, meanwhile.   Fortunately, they both had other people to see, so I was able to resume.  

Most people took the flyers, some very graciously and kindly.  A few refused, couldn't be bothered, they Knew Everything about PAWS they want to know. 

Since my cover was blown, anyway, I started to look at name tags, figuring I might as well talk to people with whom I've corresponded. A couple of those included Nina Schaefer and Patti Strand, but

they were swept away in the crowd entering the meeting room and didn't hear me call out to them.   One person who did take a flyer was the Irish Wolfhound Club of America delegate, Eugenia Hunter, who didn't realize who handed her the flyer, and I left it at that.

Several people asked whom I represented.  Answer: DFOW.   Did I really come in from Wisconsin for this?   No, I'm DFOW's rep in NYC.

Then, I was approached by Gretchen Bernardi, delegate from the Mississippi Valley Kennel Club, but a long-time, very well-known Irish wolfhound breeder-judge, also a judge of some other hound breeds, of whom I have admittedly been critical on occasion of her position on commercial kennels.   Oh, oh, I was in trouble, but Gretchen was certainly gracious.  She had already entered the meeting room and came out specifically to see me, so the word must have gotten out that the Internet hothead in New York was the lady giving out flyers in the lobby outside of the meeting room.

 Gretchen and I ''discussed'' PAWS, briefly, on opposite sides, for sure, but left open the possibility of future conversation.  With all these PAWS supporters, I stood my ground and pointed out they didn't have the data, they didn't know how many *alleged* puppy mills there are, that import issues should be a different and separate bill, and no numbers would be satisfactory, as long as the Maginot line between retail and wholesale were breached.

 I'm not sure why anyone thought I was important enough to argue with, but it was interesting hearing first-hand in person other opinions from influential persons in the fancy.

 I continued giving out flyers as people straggled in.  One man who surprisingly actually asked for a flyer was Walter Goodman, whose name tag I did not have to read to recognize him, Mr. Skye Terrier, himself, a board member and delegate from his parent club.  That meeting was starting to look like Academy Awards night of the dog fancy.

 Then, I saw right in front of me at my eye level (I'm 5'5'') a name tag saying, Jim Holt, and promptly clutched my flyers in shaky hands.   But he asked for a flyer, and I gave him one.   Then, he asked me who I was, and I said only that I represented the Dog Federation of Wisconsin.  As it happens, I had a brief and not too friendly correspondence with him a month or so ago.

 Finally, someone closed the doors to the meeting room, at that point nearly a half hour late.  I stayed for a while to catch the last few stragglers and then left, having by then passed out nearly half the flyers, a good night's work.  For good measure, I left a few flyers on the table outside of the door to the meeting room.

  Day 2:

There are delegates' meetings basically all day both days, overlapping in time, but I arrived with one meeting going on, the general meeting yet to begin, so there were a lot of people milling around in the lobby outside of the ballroom where the general meeting was to take place.  The food bars were set up in that lobby. 

 I started to pass out flyers.  There was much more resistance than Monday night, a lot more people just plain refused.  I wasn't so sure Monday night, but I was on Tuesday that many, if not most of the delegates are convinced that if AKC doesn't compromise with Senator Santorum, he will go ahead full steam with a much worse bill. 

 But I kept going, and met Dr. Battaglia, who was very friendly.  I told him he was a brave man, much appreciated out here.  He laughed, took a flyer, looked at it, and said, ''Aha, I think I know what this is,'' and I said, ''You do, and you will no doubt recognize little bits and pieces of yourself in that flyer.''   The several people he was chatting with weren't so friendly, but they took flyers, anyway.

 Someone else said she needed three flyers, and I said she could even have more and gave her four or five.

 Otherwise, I really thought Mr. Holt must have gotten to a lot of delegates Monday night, who might have been on the fence.  He wasn't there while I was there; his name tag wasn't picked-up.

 Gretchen Bernardi spotted me, took me over to meet Stephen Gladstone, another board member who strongly supports PAWS.   He is a breeder-judge (Cardigan Welsh Corgis), also a group judge, and delegate for the Reno, Nevada Kennel Club.  We shook hands, and he asked for a copy of the flyer, which I gave him.  I would liked to have conversed with him, but someone else needed to see him.

 I put a few more flyers into various hands, most of whom were not too friendly, until....

 Paula Spector, who is the AKC staffer in charge of organizing delegates' meetings, and another AKC official stopped me and said I had to leave, that this was a private meeting.  I said I knew that, but this (the lobby area) was a public space.  They said, no, the whole floor was private while the AKC delegates' meetings were going on.  I started to say I represented DFOW, but they said, unless I was a delegate, I had to leave.  In short, I was trespassing.

 I just looked at them both, didn't say anything, and they looked at each other, and then said, ''Let's call hotel security.''   And then to me, ''Do you want us to get hotel security?''

 It was not an idle threat, and the one other time in my life I happened to be in another New York hotel when hotel security was called-in (for someone else), the next people to arrive were NYPD.

 So I answered, ''Well, you just gave me a good story.''  They repeated the threat to call hotel security.  I said, ''I'm a reporter, and as I said, this is a good story.''   So they said, ''Reporters aren't allowed here.''  I replied, ''I know that, but you still just gave me a good story.  Ta ta.''  And I walked off, took the elevator downstairs.

 Then I reconsidered and went back upstairs, looked around to see if the coast was clear, gave a couple or so more delegates wandering around between meeting rooms flyers, then spotted Paula Spector again,  ducked back behind a corner, peeked around to see if she was out of sight (or I out of her line of sight), then left a stack of flyers on a table in a strategic spot that delegates passed from one meeting room to another, but well away from the center of the food activity.

 It was the best I could think of to do, unless I was willing to get into a hassle with hotel security and possibly get arrested for trespassing.  There are limits to my activism, and they stop short of spending a day or overnight in a New York City Criminal Court lock-up.  Besides, I thought DFOW should not have to pay an attorney to defend me against AKC.

 Outside the hotel, I sat on one of the planters near the entrance for a while and looked for delegates and actually spotted three or four whom I recognized from the night before and to whom I politely handed flyers, which they accepted nicely.

 Then I went home and took the reason for all this and myself out to lunch.

Ms. Pliner is a free lance writer, Editor, and Irish Wolfhound fancier.   SookeyCapote@aol.com

The Flyer that was handed out.