Talk:American Kennel Club
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[edit] AKC problems removed from article
Removed from article after being added by User:205.188.116.66; needs more NPOV & more encyclopedic writing. Elf | Talk 19:08, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Unfortunately, the above claim regarding "that the dog is purely of one recognized breed," is not backed up by the facts. The registration "papers" not only do not warrant that the dog is healthy, or from show-quality blood lines, registration papers do not warrant much of anything.
For example, the AKC gets a tax-exemption for maintaining the purebred dog registry. However, in a July 15, 1996 letter, David C. Merriman, then Executive Vice President and CEO of the AKC, wrote, "To my knowledge, there has never been an audit of the AKC registry by an outside or independent investigator."
In an ABC World News Tonight Story, as well as a 1995 20/20 investigative piece (as well as numerous newspaper investigative stories) one of the AKC's top investigators estimated that at least half of the AKC's Registry was no good. That is, when the AKC's own investigators go into check on a puppy mill (yes, AKC registers puppy-mill dogs), even if they find a complete mess, with no accurate records, no way to connect parents to offspring or even determine if the dog's are not mixed-breeds, for example, they do not purge the registry and pull out all the (often) thousands and thousands of unproven registered offspring. Nor do they notify all the puppy buyers, past and present, that AKC's own investigators have shown that their dog can't be certified as "purebred."
A few years ago, when the AKC decided to consider offering a higher-tiered paper that involved DNA testing for its registration papers, a secret memo that circulated to the top management of AKC warned that use of DNA would "define the lack of integrity in the Registry," thus "negatively affect the basic cash cow [dog registrations]."
Recently, since revenues are down, AKC has started an Online Breeders Classified Program. Under the section on "legal concerns," # 2 states: "The AKC makes no warranty or guarantee as to health, quality, parentage or value of dogs listed." In other words, AKC won't even warrant parentage, so the claim of the dog being "purebred" has no verifiable meaning. The buying public is simply being sold (through the U.S. Mail) a piece of paper that nobody warrants, not event the AKC.
So, what is the dog buying public actually buying when they send their money into AKC for their "paper?" Buyers get a piece of paper with numbers printed on it, a paper that has nothing to do with health, quality or even guarantees the dog's parentage, let alone whether or not it's "pure-bred." The Registry has never been audited, the AKC's own top investigator estimates that at least 50% of the "paper" sold is worthless. And the AKC has never purged that registry of "disallowed" dogs, not even in the case of brokers who were selling thousands of dogs (see the John & Sandra Maike case:John Rau Maike, et al, Debtors; J.R. Maike v AKC, Case No. 87-10376; Adversary proceeding 87-0090, Kansas, March 20, 1987), for example.
For another interesting overview of what AKC is really selling, see case # 4:CV-93-122l (Judge McClure)American Kennel Club, Inc, vs Gladstone& Watkins, U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, June 14, 1995. In this action, Steven D. Gladstone stated, "But even though AKC knows better, they continue to register dogs of 'dubious lineage,' which have no records to support the AKC registerable claim. In so doing AKC and its lawyers know that it 'perpetrates a fraud on the dog-buying public.' They simply do not care."
Gladstone later dropped his lawsuit and is now serving on the AKC's Board. The lawsuit's claim, made in a sworn affidavit, by an attorney in good standing with the Pennsylvania bar, makes for very interesting reading.
And, along with other lawsuit evidence, is why one federal attorney refered to AKC dog registrations as "the mother of all mail frauds."
[edit] Lots of problems with AKC
More wrong with the AKC than failure to abide by its standards.
It's not just that the AKC doesn't always meet its standards - it's that its standards are destructive to working breeds.
They insist that standards are written to tightly define a specific appearance, when that appearance is irrelevent to or even detrimental to the purpose of the breed.
They refuse standards that include behavioral requirements, even when the behavioral requirements are essential to the breed.
And they close the stud book - registering only pure descendents of their own registered dogs. Severely limiting the genetic diversity available, and weakening the breed.
I'm coming at this from the Jack Russell community - and the Jack owners are very much aware of how the Kennel Clubs destroyed the Fox Terriers.
Not only are Fox Terriers no longer suitable for going to ground after a fox, they're no longer capable of it. They're too tall and far to thick in the chest.
More than that, their straight shoulders mean that they can't even run efficiently.
The JRT clubs (JRTCGB/JRTCA/JRTCC) were established for the specific purpose of ensuring that the Jacks stayed Jacks - small fiesty terriers suitable for foxing.
And then the AKC comes along, recognizes the breed in direct opposition to the wishes of the vast majority of JRTC members and breeders, and establishes a "standard" that has no behavioral component and that excludes every dog small enough to go down a hole. (AKC height is 12-15", with an ideal height of 13" and 14" for female and male - JRTC is 10-15" with no "ideal" height specified.)
Is it any wonder that the JRT owners are so strongly opposed to the AKC?
jdege | Talk 17:59, 2004 Nov 30 (UTC)
- There's a whole book out that describes what the AKC has done to dog breeds. I don't remember the title now, dagnabbit--but it's very scary. Those of us who are around a lot of performance dogs find a lot of antipathy towards AKC. They've done some good things-- Canine Good Citizen, the Home Again registry for finding lost dogs-- and you'll find many defenders of why it's important to keep a closed stud book etc. But definitely controversial. Makes writing an article challenging. :-) Elf | Talk 02:58, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- I don't know if it's the book you're thinking of, Elf, but there's The Puppy Report by Larry Shook, it deals alot with what the AKC is doing to pure breds, and why many "rare" dog breed clubs refuse to join. [[User:Lachatdelarue|Lachatdelarue (talk)]] 15:03, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Re: Group articles
We already had the discussion about what to do about Group articles and decided that, because the lists are dynamic and because there's really no useful info we can add, the best thing to do at Wikipedia is to have a single article that compares the dogs in the various groups. The only reason we decided to do FCI differently was because of the sectioning strategy, although after working onthe Toy Group page I think we could get rid of FCI Terrier Group and find a clean way to fold it back in to Terrier Group. It would be insane (MyPOV) to try to maintain the other lists when they're readily available on the web in other places. Wikip is so slow right now that I can't take the time to find it, but I think it's on one of the subpages or subpage discussions at the dog project. So I'm going to revert the changes. Elf | Talk 22:12, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Genetic Diversity & Dog Breeding
It would also be interesting and indeed important to the value of this article to reference the registration of a breed with AKC, this subject opens up a number of very important aspects of AKC, dog breeding, and historic perspectives on each, which would benefit the depth of the article, its links to other subjects (for a more rounded discussion of the issues) as well as documenting the ongoing debate over showing dogs, animal rights, and selective breeding.
Granted these topics require a great deal of NPOV, as many individuals feel strongly in many ways. Nonetheless, the AKC straddles a great deal of these issues, and it should be represented here.
[edit] ILP section
"Dogs enrolled in ILP may participate in many of the same events as normal AKC-enrolled animals." Why not specify that ILP dogs can participate in performance events? "Many" is not a useful term.
- There was originally a list, recently removed, not sure why. readded with corrected links. Elf | Talk 01:40, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Critique
- I just had occasion to refer to this "article" . . . if that's what it's supposed to be called . . . for possible inclusion in my own growing specialist wiki. Appalling. I wouldn't even bother to edit this thing. I'll write my own article on AKC from scratch. But I don't think I would bother trying to post it here. My own feelings in the matter are these: when does NPOV actually amount to something like the cat trying uselessly to cover up what it just did on the kitchen floor? Granted that the critique of AKC removed from the page might not be "encyclopedic" enough in tone, at least it tried to come to terms with some of the disturbing issues respecting AKC currently. To judge from what I read in the online canine press just now, it looks like the character of the org is changing at warp speed. Noncommittal little articles like the present WP AKC article that leave out more than they include are helpful to NOBODY except the growing crowd who feel it's unpatriotic to discuss ANYTHING frankly if it's American. I am not an American; I have nothing to do with AKC and not enough special interest and expertise to do a decent Wikipedia article on the subject, or I would write one. And probably see it taken down the next day. Plenty of problems here -- and "Genetic Diversity, the AKC and dog breeding" is a topic that deserves a separate article on its own, not to mention the other concerns and abuses -- but I hope somebody takes this article in hand and produces something that resembles an honest and informative article on the AKC and its exact present-day position in the dog world.
Ditkoofseppala 00:44, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
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- Herewith a link to the rudimentary AKC page just written for SeppalaWiki:
[SeppalaWiki AKC page] Not comprehensive enough for here, but perhaps an example of how the subject might be dealt with substantively with little violence done to NPOV. Ditkoofseppala 03:09, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
- The critiques of the AKC I've been hearing have to do not with their failure to do what they promise, but with the destructive results of their goals.
- That their emphasis on appearance-only standards and closed studbooks has been enormously destructive to the genetics of the breeds they register.
- And, of course, their practice of engaging in hostile takeovers of outside registries of breeds that have become popular - cases in point the Border Collie and the Jack Russell Terrier.
- I don't think an article on the AKC should be dominated by the controversies. Rather it should emphasize the good work that they clearly do. But the controversies should be mentioned. And, IMO, the conflicts with the working-breed clubs should be included in that mention.
- --jdege 15:12, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
