Revised December 2011.
The attempts to get this article written remind me of my childhood attempts to catch fish in my hands, in the steam near our home. The target keeps moving, wiggling, eluding my grasp. Just about the time I decide to sit down and outline the various dog organizations, with a concentration in certain areas, the animal avoids capture by changing the “rules.” Since I am an international judge for many different registries, and travel widely in that capacity, I have been asked to give an explanation of these organizations. All I can do is try; somebody else may have a better way of grabbing that slippery fish—good luck.
This treatise will necessarily be heavy with abbreviations, something I never liked or got accustomed to, probably because I never served in the armed forces, where acronyms and abbreviations are rife. One correspondent remarked, “I know what would be of great help to most novices: an explanation, in fairly understandable terms, of the main dog organizations (FCI, SV, WUSV, DVG, USA, WDA, GSDCA, VDH, AKC, CKC, KC, UKC, and others) and how this jumble or jungle of clubs relates to each other and the dog world.”
We must also follow the primary rule of education and start with the known before progressing to the new, which in this case means an explanation of “registration.” The basic meaning of the term is that someone (whom you can rely on to keep accurate records and stay in the business) will put your dog’s name and certain vital statistics on a list (now popularly referred to as a database). That’s all that it might mean when you say your dog is registered. Many rare-breed clubs have their own independent registries, and many “new” breeds gain recognition as something other than mongrels if the developer keeps good records and the dogs “breed true.” In the U.S., “Is your dog registered?” or, further south, “Hey, Bubba, is yo’ dawg pedigreed?” to most people means “Does the AKC have records of your dog’s ancestry and do they attest to its purity and the pedigree’s accuracy?” Until DNA started to become popular or required, those assurances from AKC were worth no more than anybody else’s. Most of us know how easy it was for a puppy mill to “register” pups, using “papers” from phantom, perhaps never-existed, parents. Even with random inspections, the puppy farm could easily say that the parents had been given away or sold, or had died. The notorious traffic in “little blue pieces of paper” (now different color and bigger) is what made AKC’s treasury so fat and their army of lawyers and bureaucrats so large.
Thus, millions of dogs have been presented as both purebred and having descended from certain ancestors, while a substantial percentage actually had different parentage than shown on the “certified” registration or pedigree papers. Different organizations have different confidence levels in the public minds. For example, the modern SV (German GSD club) pedigrees are perhaps the most accurate in the world, partly because of the Teutonic discipline and (more recently) partly because DNA samples must now be taken and recorded. Stiff penalties will be meted to those who attempt to cheat now. Even before the advent of DNA, fewer cases of fraud had been practiced in Germany than in the U.S.; therefore, the registrations were more meaningful, on average. I can give you a handwritten pedigree and say the pup you buy from me is “registered” with my own registry (filing cabinet, computer), or I can give you that AKC paper, which might be no more accurate but carries more widespread recognition, or I could give you the SV Ahnentafel-pedigree (or equivalent) accompanied by the DNA certifications and a kit for you to send in a DNA sample of the pup if you wanted proof of the parentage. You could have your dogs registered with the Racing Greyhound Association, the National American Pit Bull Terrier Club, the UKC, or any other registration service (meaning people who will take your money and give you a warm feeling that the records live in some important files). You might also register a single dog with a number of registries concurrently: SV, UKC, AKC, etc. In most European countries, registration and the maintenance of the “stud book” (record of breedings and ancestries) are jealously guarded by the breed club, at least in that country. Unfortunately, lack of personnel or perhaps insufficient feelings of stewardship results in many smaller clubs and some countries’ large clubs having given up the rights and responsibilities to some all-breed organization like the AKC.
Buyers want this sort of registration for a few reasons. One most common is just that they think they should, without any thought-out reason. Their neighbors do, the parents were, etc. Even if the dog will never be bred or shown, they think that they are almost compelled to get that magic AKC “paper”; in such a case it’s probably mere brainwashing and propaganda. You don’t have to have a pedigree that your dog neither reads nor needs in order to enjoy its companionship. A better reason to have some registration is to give you entrance to conformation shows. A third is so you can breed your dog and convince the puppy buyers that the ancestry is true.
Many Clubs
Besides the confusion over pedigree registration bodies, there is also the plethora of organizations (clubs) that present shows and trials. Here I will generally use the word “show” to denote a competition in which you expect a judge to rate and rank dogs by anatomical and other characteristics, and agree or disagree with the many exhibitors who are in effect claiming “My dog looks better than your dog,” or at least asking the judge for his opinion on that subject. I use the word “trial” to refer to a performance event in which anatomy or breed-worthiness may play a much lower or at least substantially different role, one in which the ability to do certain tasks is rewarded with a similar sort of ranking by the chosen adjudicator.
The links in the chains of connections between organizations will vary from one country to another, but for the most part they are similar in affiliation: from local to national to international, with regional or multi-national organization in some cases.
There are two basic type s of dog clubs (organizations). The most widely known are the National registries, such as AKC, CKC, UKC, etc. Their function is very limited and simple: to issue a certificate for a fee, and to provide a forum for the rewarding and ranking of the competing animals in respect to how closely they approach the Standards of the breeds. They also get involved with performance sports events. By the way, I capitalize Standard whenever I mean the generally-accepted written description of the ideal animal in each breed. How accurate and useful these Standards are, is a subject for a different article. The conformation shows put on by these organizations or subsidiary member clubs are rightly referred to as “beauty contests.” They have their value, but do not tell the whole story about the individual dog or the breed.
The lesser-known type includes the show/working/training/sporting/Schutzhund/agility clubs. These clubs do not register dogs, with few exceptions such as the club for racing Greyhounds. However, they have an influence on the breeding of working or utilitarian dogs by providing opportunities for further refining the selection process that is supposed to ensure the proper future of the respective breeds. An example is the Schutzhund sport. This word in German means “protection dog” although dogs trained for the SchH titles (more recently changed to IPO for International Prufung Organization) must be proficient in tracking and obedience as well as the “manwork” of the owner-protection part of the sport. It is a highly stylized team choreograph, drawn from incidences and requirements in real life. Many dog sports clubs are multi-breed, all-breed, or non-restricted. Deutscher Verband der Gebrauchshundsportvereine (DVG) is an example of a working sports club with origin and HQ in Germany but “chapters” in many countries including the U.S.
Schutzhund clubs provide training facilities and organize Schutzhund trials, competitions and similar dog sport events for all working dog breeds, including German Shepherds, Rottweilers, Giant Schnauzers, Boxers, Dobermans, APBTs, and several more—even mixed breeds. In Germany, they have to be members in, and are bound by the rules of, the German “Dog Sport Club” (DHV Deutscher Hundesport Verein), which is the “National parent club” or the “Union” of the (performance-oriented) Dog Sport Clubs of Germany. One of the dog sport clubs you may have encountered in the past is the DVG mentioned in the preceding paragraph. It is a member of the DHV and has some branches in the US and Canada. The SV is linked to UScA (United Schutzhund Clubs of America, also known as USA) as well as to the GSDC of America though its WDA subsidiary, and other SV-like clubs throughout the world via the WUSV, described below. So, the titles earned in DVG are acceptable wherever the SV, UScA, and other Schutzhund data are. You can get your SchH/IPO titles by combining results of various organizations’ trials that are convenient to you. SV rules say that for a German-resident dog, or any dog that is likely to compete in or produce offspring resident in Germany) the SchH title must be earned under an SV judge. Another type of sports club is the popular Agility club. Also, there are racing/coursing clubs, hunting clubs, and others.
To complicate things a little, either type of club can be a national or international organization with different purposes; plus, some of the clubs such as WDA and United Schutzhund Clubs of America (UScA/USA) combine both functions: competitions for beauty as well as training titles.
National and International Dog Registry Organizations
The FCI (Federation Cynologique Internationale), whose head office is in Belgium, was formed to link all countries’ all-breed dog clubs internationally in the interest of worldwide uniformity of breed standards. It has expanded its influence and power beyond that noble calling of promoting “country-of-origin” breed standards, and now has its own sponsorship of dog shows, and much more power over judges and member clubs than is proper or wise. In fact, the FCI has become somewhat of a superpower or overbearing giant. Most national clubs of many countries in the world, including all of continental Europe, part of Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and most of South America are members of the FCI. Even most former eastern-block countries have now joined the FCI since the fall of the Iron Curtain. The only notable exceptions in the western hemisphere or non-third-world countries are England, Canada, Australia, and the U.S. And even here, the FCI is a powerful force. The AKC, UK’s Kennel Club, and CKC have reciprocal agreements with FCI even though they are not members in the usual sense. Judging in most countries means that the national club there writes to the “recognized” national club in the home country of the proposed or desired judge, to get a list of the breeds he is approved for in their records. In the U.S., despite the honorable and reputable United Kennel Club (UKC) being over 100 years old, and recognizing more “FCI breeds” than AKC does, the AKC is the only registry contacted by FCI members for that judge information. There are also other dog show registries in the U.S. that recognize all the world’s breeds, but are similarly ignored by the FCI-member clubs. The FCI puts unbelievable pressure on its member and affiliated clubs to use only those U.S. judges who are AKC-licensed, and only to do the breeds AKC has approved them for.
The FCI allows only one member club per country (that applies to those they have a “working agreement” with, too—there’s that European mentality again about government approval for what should be essentially a free-market enterprise). FCI member clubs all agree to promote the same FCI breed Standards and run shows more or less in the same manner from country to country. Although there is great pressure on the national clubs to choose only judges licensed or recognized by what the FCI considers to be the legitimate and single national all-breed dog club in the home countries of those judges, the clubs still have the ability and right to choose judges of their own liking, and for the breeds they want them to do. An option seldom chosen, however. For example, although I am not licensed by AKC for Dobes here, I was chosen to judge a very important Doberman Pinscher specialty in India at the FCI Asian show a couple of years ago. Also, I was the sole judge for two all-breed shows in Pakistan; I was chosen for that honor because I am an all-breed judge and have done such shows for many registries, such as the National Canine Association, States Kennel Club, ARBA, Colombia, China, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Trinidad & Tobago. When I judged Rotties and Shibas at the big Scottish KC show (that is a member of the British national organization loftily called “THE Kennel Club” or “KC”), I drew an overload, but neither club wanted to give up in their insistence that I be their chosen judge, so the Scottish KC set the starting time earlier to accommodate the extra load. I have also judged many national and regional specialties for breeds not yet appropriated by the AKC, many of which are FCI breeds. But generally, if a foreign FCI club wants a U.S. expert to judge all or many breeds, or certain breeds that are not in his AKC license, it can be like pulling hens’ teeth to accomplish it. By the way, the KC and CKC have similar “working relationships” (reciprocity) with each other and the AKC as well as with the FCI.
A question I occasionally hear is, “Does the FCI provide registration for all breeds, as does the AKC?” All breeds? “All” means different things to different clubs. What is frequently referred to as an “all-breed” club seldom really is, especially if your world is mainly the U.S., Canada, or the UK. These countries have no regular FCI membership, though they do have a “working agreement.” Besides these notable exceptions in the “western hemisphere” there are additional ones in “third world countries.”
States KC was a true all-breed club in the several years it lasted; AKC is not a true all-breed club; it recognizes some 135 breeds and counting. CKC has a few more. FCI probably had some 300+ last time I looked, but worldwide there are about 400-450 “breeds” recognized by one or another “all-breed” club or collection of specialty clubs. UKC, headquartered in Michigan, recognizes and hosts many more breeds than any other show-givng registry does. The FCI has been expanding in its “services” and penetration into the national and local affairs, and that has included hip and pedigree registries. They also sponsor a few shows, such as world and regional competitions. The AKC has a working relationship with the FCI but not with WUSV, and the GSDCA has membership in the WUSV but not with FCI. Only national clubs can be members of FCI, and only one per country. There is what can be called a “dotted-line” connection between the WUSV and FCI, mainly because of the SV officials being prominent or influential in both.
The SV and similar “breed-specific registry clubs” in Germany are also members in, and bound by the rules of, the “Dog Society of Germany” VDH. That stands for Verband für das Deutsche Hundewesen, literally “The Club for German Dog Affairs,” though not limited to breeds of German origin, of course. It is the “national,” “parent,” or “main” dog club of Germany, and in turn is a member in, and bound by the rules of, that international organization, the FCI. One observer reminds his website subscribers that “The VDH is not only a ‘conformation competition sports type of club’, but the absolute-top ‘anything to do with dogs in Germany’ type of organization.” The same scenario is played out in other countries, where breed clubs are in some way typically under the umbrella of a national kennel club. In most countries, there is such a level of socialism (the definition of that political philosophy being a high degree of other people’s control over your individual rights) that there is only one national kennel club, and it usually is under the control of politicians in some branch such as the Agriculture Department, or the Ministry of Whatever. Whenever people who have no vested interest in your activity (dogs or anything else) make decisions about your hobby or sport, many things suffer: liberty, quality, and fraternity, to paraphrase the French national motto. For example, police departments and the public good would benefit tremendously from the use of K9 partners, but in most U.S. cities, mayors and newspaper publishers/editors who influence such decisions are very seldom dog owners. And if they are, it’s usually their kids’ Toy Poodle. Similarly, very few of the people running the AKC are dog owners. The further from the people, the worse the regulations, and this applies to the dog sport as well.
It has been said that the VDH does not appear to have much, if any, backing from the law in Germany. Anybody can breed and handle dogs without VDH blessing and against VDH rules in Germany. However, VDH do advertise quite a bit, hold shows and operate an office and a puppy referral system to guide the public in the right direction. And in many breeds, the recognition as purebred and approved comes through the breed clubs like the SV; if you don’t have an SV-approved breeding dog, you would find it almost impossible to sell GSD puppies. Many can imagine that any Federal government would prefer to have a single (national) entity they have to deal with, concerning dog questions or legislation, instead of several competing ones. But there are non-AKC-monopoly types of organizations for that purpose, so a government club is not the answer. In the U.S., they could deal with ADOA, American Dog Owners Association, for legislative matters; ADOA does not seek to rule the country’s dog owners, but to be ruled by them. Lincoln would have approved of that.
By the way, there are two European dog clubs with the initials VDH, the other being the German Shepherd Dog club in the Netherlands, Vereniging van Fokkers en Liefhebbers van Duitse Herdershonden, a long name that is abbreviated into the first and the last two words. The word “Fokkers” means “breeders.”
Start at the base of the pyramid: the individual joins with like-minded sportsfriends in a local club. It may be oriented toward conformation, or some performance activity. For the sake of equal footing under uniform rules to operate under whenever there is competition, local clubs are affiliated with or divisions of larger umbrella organizations. For example, suppose you are a dog owner and you are affiliated with a local all-breed club, as is common in the U.S. and Canada. Your Podunk KC is probably either a member of the AKC or is licensed to hold shows and obedience trials under its regulations. The AKC is supposedly “a club of clubs.” The UKC has a similar network of clubs across the U.S., Canada, and even one in Japan. A different situation exists with the Canadian Kennel Club, though, because individuals, not clubs, make up its membership. While the AKC has no governmental sanction, authority, or official recognition, the CKC is a semi-governmental agency that manages studbook registries, shows, and performance events in that country. On the other hand, perhaps your dog activities are solely or mainly in the realm of the specialty club for your breed. If you are a member of the Smallville Hungarian Trufflehound Club, that is probably a branch of a national breed club. This specialty-club approach is the major means of dog sport enjoyment in Europe, where everything is so much closer together, and you can generally find plenty of other Trufflehound enthusiasts within easy driving distance.
Likewise, your Schutzhund club in Moosetail Manitoba (some of the names I’ll use are fictitious) may have affiliation with the German Shepherd Schutzhund Club of Canada (GSSCC) and its Prairie Provinces Region. In turn, this national club may be a member of WUSV, the World Union of GSD clubs (Schäferhunde Vereins). Even if your Moosetail Club has an interest only in the Schutzhund sport, it is thus affiliated with other clubs in Canada and abroad that might be active only in conformation (beauty pageants) competition. In fact, if you include the AKC and CKC world, there are far more “breed clubs” centered on conformation than there are single- or multi-breed clubs doing Schutzhund. In Latin America, the performance sports take a distant back seat to the conformation part of the sport, even if you are looking solely at the GSD, which, by the way, is almost entirely of the international/German style or lines. In North America, most clubs that deal with this style dog, truer to the Standard, are Schutzhund clubs, and few put on conformation shows except when hosting the UScA or WDA Sieger Show or regional events. Some are multi-functional regional or local branches of the UScA or WDA.
If you follow the links in the chain leading through the GSDCA and the more than a hundred other breed clubs that come together under the AKC rules and structure, you see that such a monolithic arrangement is definitely run from the top down. The bureaucrats making up the “staff,” instead of acting like hired help, wield tyrannical power over judges and local clubs. Specialty (breed) clubs may have a tiny bit more influence on their own rules and affairs than the typical all-breed club does, but not much. The local breed club usually is almost as much controlled by its national “parent club” as under the thumb of the AKC staff. Some very few decisions are made by the AKC Board of Directors and its various committees, and even fewer are made by the representatives of the member clubs, called “Delegates.”
In this way, it is much like the army of non-elected rulers of the U.S. who grind out the policies of various departments of the government. The SV and WUSV also represent a monolithic arrangement, but it is much more like a combination of beneficent dictatorship and a parliamentarian system of operating. Much more good common sense is practiced there and in many European breed and all-breed clubs. The AKC is a monopoly, flagrantly operating in violating of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, but prosecution under this law is only possible when the political climate in Washington DC swings back to focus on these matters. Even businessmen who flirt with monopoly in other commercial fields are not bothered by the Feds these days.
A somewhat similar situation exists in the U.K., and in Australia. One area of minor change in the U.S. is that Schutzhund once again was “allowed” in conjunction with AKC-sanctioned events (it had been outlawed in the late 1980s). There does not seem to be any similar relaxation in the Kingdom (Queendom?) or the Land of Oz, and Schutzhund is still a dirty word in those circles. Dog people have to practice the sport incognito or risk losing privileges in The KC, and presumably in the Australian National Kennel Council, Aussies’ rough equivalent of AKC. In the GSDC of Australia, you dare not advocate Schutzhund if you want to keep any standing in the breed club. The sports people are very much in the minority there, at least regarding positions of power.
In other countries, a similar type of hierarchy is found. Local “Ortsgruppe” clubs of GSD fanciers are organizationally part of a regional “Landesgruppe” and members of the SV. The SV is the chief member of the association called WUSV, but within Germany it is also a member of the government-recognized VDH, which in turn is a member of the FCI. So there are two horns branching upward, one through the breed organization and one to the all-breed organization. German Rottweiler clubs likewise band together in the specialty club ADRK, another VDH member. And the same scene is played on different stages. It is the breed club that registers dogs in most of the world, with some countries also requiring additional registration in an all-breed club in order for you to sell puppies. It’s just another rip-off, since the best people to control the breeding are the breed clubs.
The WUSV, World Union of Schäferhund (GSD) clubs, currently representing more than 60 countries, was established in 1974 with the aim of bringing all GSD clubs worldwide closer together and with the SV in Germany. The president of the SV has always been the president of the WUSV. The WUSV is allied to the FCI through direct communications, as well as through membership in the FCI club, Germany’s VDH. Clubs like the United Schutzhund Clubs of America (UScA) also have a dotted-line connection to the FCI and a direct connection to the WUSV, and that strongly encourages them to abide by both FCI and SV (which is really what WUSV is, for the most part) regulations. But UScA has no connection to a national all-breed club like the AKC (thank heavens!). WDA does, through its parent GSDCA (a member club of AKC). If the position of the SV among all those dog clubs is a bit confusing, there are several reasons for that. First, because of the immense popularity of the German Shepherd everywhere outside of North America, the SV is not only the largest breed-specific registry in the world, it’s also the most active of all clubs, thus overshadowing many of its all-breed national or the international union of breed club organizations by its size. Second, besides being a single-breed registry club, the SV also strongly promotes working-dog activities of all kinds, thus having performance as well as breeding functions.
I have heard that there is a “special” relationship between SV and FCI, but I suspect it is something else. The SV, being the biggest club in the world as well as in Germany, is almost running the VDH for all practical purposes, and thereby is a very strong voice in the FCI. The WUSV, through its various national-club members but mostly the SV, has great influence on FCI… in most countries, the GSD is the most populous breed, and has the most powerful group of fanciers. Does the FCI “run” the WUSV or does the SV? The pres. of the SV has historically been the pres of the WUSV. The pres. of the VDH as of this writing was Uwe Fischer, a man who is pictured with me in my book, after his judging the GSD at the Dublin show (I had done the breed a week before in another part of Ireland); he is a respected GSD judge, much in favor with the SV and not about to cross it. So in a small but significant way, the hand of the SV is on the VDH and FCI steering wheels. As I understand it, only “all-breed” clubs are allowed to be members of FCI, and I do not see that scene changing. In my opinion, the FCI has grown too fat and is gradually encroaching on the rights and responsibilities of the true guardians of the breeds, the breed clubs. Instead of being a useful lean track-and-field athlete, it is turning into the Sumo wrestler of dog organizations, with far more power and weight than it should, or was originally intended to, have . The licensing of judges is just one area that should be left up to breed clubs and the hiring all-breed clubs in a free market system of demand and local choice.
SV has been a driving force and a trendsetter from the beginning and therefore is sometimes being mistaken as a large international organization. One example of that perception is that of the Schutzhund sport. It was the SV under Max von Stephanitz that started to test dogs for suitability to do police work, which later evolved into Schutzhund and military work. But in 1956, several of the breed-specific clubs (led by the SV) and several of the working dog sport associations (such as the DVG, described above) formed the “Association of breed registry and working-dog sport clubs,” Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Zuchtvereine und Gebrauchshundeverbände (AZG). The AZG has the purpose of administrating uniform international Schutzhund/IPO rules via the FCI to assure inter-club and international conformity, making it possible to hold identical or similar international trial competitions in many countries. Some people still think the SV is the international Schutzhund administrator. However, that is because it is the largest and most visible part of the sport. With the SV’s blessings, the AKZ implemented changes to take effect on January 1,2002 in the area of requirements for breeding, and the SV’s version of the rules change is this: the AKZ titles (SchH, IPO, etc.) that allow a dog to qualify for use in breeding must in the future be achieved under an SV judge (that is, for dogs within Germany). Not many exceptions would occur, anyway, but suppose a COAPA or UScA Schutzhund judge were to award a SchH title to a dog, and that dog were to go to Germany — it would have to do the Schutzhund trial over again, there, in order for it to “count” if he would be bred in that country. Not much for most North Americans to worry about.
One WUSV non-voting (associate) member, the United Schutzhund Clubs of America (more often simply called “UScA”), had for a while established itself as the only German Shepherd Dog breed club in the US that complied with international (FCI) rules and WUSV breeding practices. It promotes an SV-USA registry “addition,” formerly so much mistaken for a real registration that many people failed to register succeeding generations with any internationally recognized registry. It was only after the revelation that the SV, WUSV, and FCI did not recognize any U.S.-born dog’s pedigree unless it was registered with the AKC, that the brown stuff hit the fan for many deluded fanciers. Every dog born in the U.S. must be AKC-registered in order to have any standing in FCI countries. UScA also started to implement the SV breed survey system in the US, although it had no homegrown Körmeisters approved by SV/WUSV. In addition, it is, like the SV in Germany, a strong supporter of working dog sport (Schutzhund) activities, with at one time over 200 local member clubs working under AZG/VDH rules throughout the US. The United Schutzhund Clubs of America has been representing the US in international WUSV competitions with remarkable success (sometimes winning the event) since 1977, but failed to send a team shortly after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on America. The WDA, a subsidiary of the GSD Club of America (member of both AKC and WUSV), sent a team, with members placing 42nd, 46th, and 54th. Canada’s GSSCC team members placed 9th (Pat-John Brown), 32nd, and 59th. The absence of a UScA team, while understandable in the light of worries about safety and care of dogs, may have bolstered the GSDCA’s bargaining position as the breed representative in the U.S.
The UScA in its early years had lost the opportunity to become the first (and voting) member of the WUSV; a few years later, the GSDCA jumped into that vacuum with its WDA subsidiary, and has had the one-vote-per-country advantage ever since. The WUSV is a non-voting member, and the two U.S. clubs were long pressured to resolve the competitive situation, or else have the WUSV do so for them. The WUSV finally decided for them as to how to select one team to represent the country at the WUSV Schutzhund championships. Because the GSDCA refuses to accept the world Standard for the breed, does not educate its (AKC-licensed) judges toward conformity to it, and ignores suggestions to encourage responsible breeding in the areas of using only titled, radiographed-acceptable, minimum-age, and breed-surveyed dogs, as well as other areas, they are a bad choice. Bad for the breed as well as the sport of dogs.
The UScA organization, with main office in St. Louis but the power really wherever the officers live, is a founding member of the American Working Dog Federation (AWDF). This is similar to the multi-breed sport clubs DVG (international) and AZG (basically European, with the real force coming from Germany). Breeds such as the GSD, Dobe, Rott, American Pit Bull Terrier/AmStaff (same breed but with a different registry), Boxer, Belgian Shepherd, Beauceron, American Bulldog, Airedale, Schnauzer, and Bouvier are represented via non-AKC specialty clubs.
The AKC has won FCI recognition for their (worthless?) papers, but as a non-member does not need to abide by FCI rules and therefore can and does set rules to suit its own agenda, even if they go against all other internationally recognized rules or, for that matter, operate without rules. Thus, the AKC is in an excellent position and has no need to make any changes. Why should the AKC risk losing members by instituting new tougher rules? They won’t. Because it is the FCI that made a mistake in recognizing AKC papers, the only way to bring North America up to international standards is to bypass the current system and establish a new system that is structured somewhat similar to most FCI recognized systems, that can prove to the public that it stands for true quality and is truly in the interest of each individual breed. And, if it can manage to get properly organized, it could then be recognized by the FCI in a full membership agreement. This would require that they should help each other get established and to deal with the AKC’s and CKC’s attempts to squash new clubs). Highly unlikely to happen in your lifetime!
I have mentioned Canada, and this might be a good time to revisit. There is one government-sanctioned and -regulated dog club in Canada, the Canadian Kennel Club. It supports shows for specialty and all-breed clubs. Some years ago, clubs for a few non-CKC registerable breeds tried to start up an ARBA-style association of rare-breeds, but ran into CKC-instigated government roadblocks. This political maneuvering was later followed by a rush on CKC’s part to recognize all those other “rare” (not previously included). Similarly, the AKC has rushed to “recognize” (spell that “acquire and appropriate”) so many of the rare (not previously included) breeds, that it had an adverse effect on the American Rare Breed Association (ARBA) which had been growing in activity. It also was growing in numbers of dogs that represented more money for AKC through new registrations. There persist, however, some very few clubs that do not seek or welcome CKC oversight and control. One is the GSSCC, German Shepherd Schutzhund Club of Canada. This small but active club holds conformation shows, including an annual Sieger Show, and several Schutzhund trials. Its main activity is in the more populated provinces of British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec, with less in the Atlantic and prairie regions. It is a WUSV member, as the GSDCC (GSD Club of Canada, CKC-affiliated) has not chosen to disobey the CKC’s ban on schutzhund.
Another correspondent asked, “Theoretically, if we were some dog group from a third world country, would it be easier to get FCI recognition? Is it the monopoly of the AKC that makes all this so difficult?” If there were not already an FCI representative in that country, and your third-world-country’s club met the requirements, yes. If there were an established club, then it would be rough going. And yes to the second part of the question, too. The monopoly of AKC is part of the problem; the other part is the notion in more-socialistic countries that government has some eminent right to control individuals and dog clubs, and these (FCI) people see the AKC as though it were like theirs, an arm of the national government. That mindset is hard to overcome, as witness all those Russians who wanted a return to the “stability” of Communism in the decades after the fall of the wall.
Another organization for GSD clubs, which may be a model for other breeds, is the fledgling COAPA, the pan-American association of national GSD breed clubs in the Western Hemisphere. Most recent members are the UScA and GSSCC. COAPA started in South America and is now hoping to be recognized as a true all-American organization. Right now, conformation is of primary interest to most COAPA member clubs, but the “total GSD” is being stressed more and more. The individual members are members of WUSV, and there is forming an additional relationship through COAPA.
There was a problem in Slovenia with the largest GSD club being shut out of the FCI-member all-breed club’s respect and recognition, yet their own “chosen” GSD club was smaller and is not a member of WUSV. Something similar existed in Chile, Uruguay, and other places. The Schutzhund-USA magazine carried my report of the show I judged in Chile; it was sponsored by the larger GSD club, which is a member of WUSV and COAPA (as UScA was). The FCI-member all-breed KC of Chile with their GSD subsidiary had their nose out of joint because I (like Walter and Hermann Martin and other previous SV judges) was not invited by them. Slightly different rivalries in other countries increase the confusion: there are two pedigree registries in the U.S., for example; the UKC has introduced many innovations that the AKC has later copied. There are apparently two Belgian registries: St Hubert and NBVK. Speaking of Belgium, there were two GSD clubs there, too, but they worked out an arrangement whereby one year the one would be represented at the WUSV meeting, and the other would alternate the next year. I believe they also took turns sending teams to the WUSV world Schutzhund championships; in the 2001 report of competing teams ranked by scores, the listing for the 14th place team was Belg. (VVDH). The listing for the U.S. teams read “USA (GSDCA)” because the UScA (United Schutzhund Clubs of America) did not compete. Otherwise both clubs would have been listed. In the United Kingdom, there are two main organizations with WUSV ties, the older GSDLeague (which has the vote) and the larger and the then-more-active BAGS (British Association of German Shepherd clubs), which is an amalgamation or society of various local and regional clubs. At least for a while, there were also two GSD clubs in Ireland, also.
Events Around the World
Where can dog fanciers participate and compete in dog events? Most competitions, even those with a locality implication such as “The Argentina Sieger Show,” are open to all dogs with acceptable registrations. In the GSD breed, for example, that would include SV, AKC, or any FCI member or affiliate club’s registered dogs. Some events are limited to dogs of the country—almost always, these are performance events. You can enter your SV-WUSV-FCI registered dog in any conformation show, provided it meets the breed survey, age, and other requirements. You can probably compete in international Schutzhund competitions like the WUSV event mentioned above, but to do so, you have to qualify with high enough scores and other prerequisites in your own country and national club, and that club has to be a member of the WUSV. Other “qualification trials” may be restricted to dogs of their home country. The national Schutzhund championship trial known as the Bundessiegerprüfung (BSP) is open only to dogs registered and living in Germany. There are Sieger and other conformation shows in almost every developed and many developing countries. There are Schutzhund trials, hunting trials, obedience trials, agility and other competitions in many countries. In short, unless you live in a sparsely-populated area, you should be able to find a choice of venues for your dog-activity desires.
