Editorial: May 27, 2022

As European countries ban the breeding of certain breeds, Germany now wants up-to-date health certificates for every dog at every show, with 40-some-odd breeds labeled torturous breeds, because of inherent health issues, to be evaluated at each dog show, where they will be approved or not approved to be exhibited. Now Slovakia doesn't want any dog in the show ring to be stacked. Just to stand on its own. Good luck with that. While the rest of the world is making it harder and harder to be an active participant in our sport, we have the absolute opposite situation. It seems like every time the American Kennel Club board of directors meets, another give-away is created. This time it’s the “ISOLATED” show-giving clubs. The board at its May meeting approved that isolated clubs (the explanation of isolated is not clarified, so can it be interrupted that the New York City Queensboro Kennel Club held in Springfield, Massachusetts, is isolated from New York?) will now be allowed to increase from three days to hold a fourth all-breed event over three days, meaning that one of those days will have two dog shows in one day. Great, just what we need – another dog show. But the gift-giving doesn’t end there: The board of directors also permanently approved increasing the entry from 500 to 600 dogs per show in one day. Other than the American Kennel Club cashing in on the listing income, what purpose does it serve? Looking at the entries of 15 sets (mostly clusters) of dog shows this weekend, the West Friendship, Maryland, four-day event had the biggest entry of all, with 680 entries on Thursday, 760 entries on Friday, 1,050 entries on Saturday and 1,020 entries on Sunday. The lowest entry was the venerable Long Island Kennel Club, once a beacon of the dog-show world (with its companion show the Ladies’ Kennel Association), which drew 460 entries. From that 460, the American Kennel Club wants to award points for those dogs that place in the group? When was the last time anyone at the kennel club said less is more? Amazing that the more the directors of the American Kennel Club feel the need to approve more and more dog shows, the louder the show-goers raise their voices to say there are just too many. The physical and financial strain on the show-goer is becoming unbearable, not to mention the strain on the show dog, which spends more and more time traveling inside a crate. Maybe our European friends need a little more; we here at home definitely need a little less.