Becoming The 2018 AKC Educational Summit—What Next! BY JACQUELINE FOGEL
T his June, the AKC hosted a one-day educational Summit for all member clubs. They encour- aged every club to send at least one rep- resentative and they scheduled it for the day before a regularly scheduled delegate meeting in New Jer- sey, so many clubs had their delegates attend. Other clubs sent vol- unteers to attend. The
significant departments: club communications, public edu- cation, club development and government relations is woe- fully small. In some cases, they have only two to three people working throughout the country to assist the hundreds of clubs and thousands of breeders. We all understand tight bud- gets. And we all understand that if the sport of purebred dogs is going to continue, we need to find better ways to do things and communicate with the public. I think these departments will need to grow to become significant to our sport. Sport. I used that word twice in the last paragraph and it brought me back to a really great comment made during the Summit by Howard Soloman from the Bedlington Terrier Club of America. Howard raised an issue after a presentation on Breed Preservation. He wants us to consider whether or not our conformation shows should be considered a sport at all. All-breed shows are really not a sport in the sense that teams or individuals compete and winners are determined by an objective accumulation of points or scores, in a pre- determined manner. What we do is actually much more like the livestock events at county and state fairs or the adjudica- tion of works of art at an art show. Howard’s comment sug- gested that if we returned to calling what we do an evaluation of livestock, then perhaps it might bring more credibility to the breeders who are professionally producing those ani- mals who compete for ribbons based upon the quality of their dogs. Right now the public thinks we host hundreds of beauty pageants and winners are just the lucky partici- pants the judges find attractive enough to send to Westmin- ster. I can understand why. We are not clear about the way judges examine and evaluate the dogs they see in relation to their breed standard. This is particularly true in the Group judging, which is the venue most often seen by the largest number of TV spectators. We all accept that the profession- als at county and state fairs understand the breeds they are judging and we accept their wisdom in the placements of the animals. That same level of understanding is absent from peo- ple watching dog judging. They think we are just picking the next “Dog of the Universe,” in our pageants. We are having a lot of trouble supporting the concept of conformation dog shows as sport. The closest events I think resemble what we do are the Olympic free-style gymnastic
cost was nominal—$75.00—and participants were given a gift bag from Royal Canin, lunch and summary materials. The Summit was well-attended with about 400 people rep- resenting clubs from every segment of the AKC’s venue of supported activities. Mostly the attending participants were invited to listen to presentations from AKC staff and volun- teers who were prepared to talk about issues facing all-breed clubs and breeders specifically. Mostly the audience listened to presentations, but after each presentation the audience was invited to ask questions of the presenters. Thankfully, the moderators limited the time available for questions and the day progressed quite smoothly. My future hope is that they include time for break-out discussion sessions along with presentations. I came away from the meeting with a general sense that the AKC has finally begun to realize the challenges facing breeders who work in isolation from other breeders and all-breed clubs who struggle to find members, volunteers and tools to help them keep their shows going. It is a good start and certainly welcome. However, as I look at the aging populations that attend these meetings, I am worried that it may be too little too late and the AKC may not be devoting enough attention to these issues instead of things like Urban Doggie DayCare Centers. The size of the staff in each of the
“RIGHT NOW THE PUBLIC THINKS WE HOST HUNDREDS OF BEAUTY PAGEANTS AND WINNERS ARE JUST THE LUCKY PARTICIPANTS THE JUDGES FIND ATTRACTIVE ENOUGH TO SEND TO WESTMINSTER.”
38 • S how S ight M agazine , J uly 2018
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