The AKC Takeover of Rare Breeds

The American Kennel Club is America's largest all-breed registration company. The first mating records published by the AKC date from 1887. Today, the AKC's registry business registers 1.5 million dogs annually for more than $35 million year. The corporation registers 140 dog breeds called "AKC recognized." Many more pure breeds -- perhaps as many as 400 non-AKC breeds -- exist that are not recognized by the AKC. These "non-recognized" breeds are called "rare breeds."

In AKC lingo, the phrase "not recognized" means only one thing: "the AKC does not register dogs of this breed in its main registration system." The AKC has long wanted an orderly system to incorporate rare breeds into this registry. In recent years, attempts by the AKC to take over some rare breeds has resulted in bitter, costly, and long-standing battles. Many rare breed aficionados consider recognition of their breed by the AKC a very bad thing.

Some rare breed clubs have refused to merely hand over their registries to the AKC and have kept their breeds out of the AKC. In turn, the AKC has welcomed such breeds when a few dissidents from the larger rare breed club, hoping to gain fame in the larger arena, bring a handful of dogs to the AKC and write a new standard. One such bitter takeover of the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel is on-going. Thousands of Cavalier owners kept their dogs out of the AKC while a dozen people took their Cavs to the AKC, founded a new club, and wrote a new standard. The rare breed Cavalier club continued to thrive and to resist the takeover by the AKC in 1997.

Other rare breed clubs have fared similarly. The Australian Shepherd Club of America (ASCA) had registered 60,000 dogs and built a club of more than 4,000 members when the AKC tried to take over its lucrative registry. In 1985, by a vote of 2-to-1, the ASCA voted against AKC recognition for its breed. Yet in 1991, a mystery Australian Shepherd club appeared out of nowhereÉ

"AKC told the 4,000 members of the old club that they could either go along with the move by merging with the 133 members of the new club, or have the new organization become the breed's top dog in the eyes of the AKC. That would give the newcomers exclusive authority to draft show-dog standards... [The ASCA was] 'effectively annexed'...Ethel Conrad, president of the United States Border Collie Club, prefers another interpretation. 'The AKC raped the Aussie,' she says."

Larry Shook, "The Puppy Report: how to select a healthy, happy dog," Ballantine Books, New York, NY, 1992, page 42.

After gaining a significant number of registrations from the former ASCA Parent club, the AKC then announced that it will close the AKC Australian Shepherd registry to all future applications this year, further forcing the remaining ASCA members to choose either AKC paperwork or forever be banned from the AKC. The AKC practice of closing an AKC breed registry restricts a breed's gene pool, even preventing importations of stock from the breed's country of origin--an extremely harmful practice.

Presently, the AKC is accepting the paperwork of 136 dissident Jack Russell Terrier fanciers over the protestations of the 9,000-member Jack Russell Terrier Club. This takeover is, like most of them, bitter.

A New Way to Take Over the Breed

Recognizing that these bitter, decidedly undemocratic takeover bids were harming the AKC's reputation and sapping its legal resources, a new, more subtle way to incorporate rare breeds even against the wishes of the rare breed's parent club was instituted by the AKC in 1995. The FSS--Foundation Stock Service--is the AKC's answer to unwilling breed takeovers. The AKC claims that the Foundation Stock Service "is provided by the AKC to help new breeds develop and establish breeding records." The AKC is now registering 32 rare breeds and will eventually incorporate most or all these breeds under its control (click here to view a list of AKC-FSS Rare Breeds).

The AKC claims that inclusion in the AKC-FSS program means "there must be some parent club that is organizing and working on having the breed recognized by the AKC." Yet, neither the Middle Asian Owtcharka, the Mi-Ki, or the Treeing Tennessee Brindle are listed by the AKC as having a representative parent club. Further, no one in the Coton de Tulear community of clubs claims they sought AKC recognition for the breed as early as June 7th, 1996, when the Coton was incorporated by the AKC into its FSS program.

An AKC spokesperson suggests that a breed will remain "unrecognized" in the FSS registry database for about 2-3 years, with another 2-3 years in the AKC Miscellaneous Class before full AKC Recognition is granted. If so, then within the next half-dozen years, the AKC stands to fully take over more than two dozen rare breeds. That is a whopping 20% or more increase in the megacorporation's potential size, influence, and power in just a few years. If the AKC's FSS registry system becomes widely accepted, rare breed registries would largely disappear and their revenues would fall to the AKC. If the AKC's rare breed registry is successful, dog breeds in the US would fall into two categories: "AKC recognized breeds" and "AKC-FSS breeds."

What is a Registry?, Why Care?

Over the years, many people inquiring about Cotons have said to us, "I just want a pet. I don't care about papers." We think they should. At its best, a registry is supposed to confirm that a particular dog is a member of the breed, and that it has a known set of ancestors. This is the information you obtain for your registration fee. An accurate pedigree is the sine qua non of a registry. Usually a three-generation pedigree is considered the minimum standard for a pedigree, albeit newly imported dogs from a country like Madagascar may not have much depth to their native records. In such cases, people knowledgeable about the country of origin and the breed, and singularly concerned about the breed must make decisions about which native dogs should qualify for the registry. This is the sort of "custom registration work" that the AKC has never provided and cannot provide in the future.

A pedigree allows a breeder to determine a pup's degree of inbreeding. With additional information about each dog in the pedigree, a breeder or buyer can assess the probable health of a pup, and its probable genetic contribution to the next generation. An accurate registry is an essential tool for a breeder, it is the raison d'etre for a breed club, and it is a critical reassurance for a dog owner. It is, in fact, one of the only justifications for spending lots of dollars to obtain a purebred dog.

Is the AKC-FSS a Registry?

The AKC states emphatically that the FSS is not a registry nor a registration service. Instead, AKC Officials call the FSS a "Foundation Stock Service" (the first use of that term in the dog fancy) which they claim is "nothing more than a record keeping system." As one official told us, "we [AKC] are maintaining the records for a rare breed club that may not want to do that. The AKC Registry," she continued, "is for AKC Recognized breeds. FSS breeds are not recognized by the AKC."

Yet, on close inspection, the differences between the real AKC Registry and the AKC-FSS non-registry seem inconsequential (click here to view a comparison).

Only As Good as the Weakest Link

Any registry is only as good as the paperwork it accepts to establish a dog within its own registry. The CTCA has always been very strict about what sorts of paperwork it will accept for the CTCA Registry. Naturally, we will accept Pet and Show puppies whose breedable quality (Show) parents hold CTCA Registrations and Pedigrees. We also accept Cotons who hold FCI -- Federation Cynologique Internationale -- pedigrees. And, of course, we accept Malagasy paperwork, although such paperwork often requires many confirming documents from the country of origin.

There are a half-dozen or more registry companies or clubs in the United States that will produce official-looking pedigrees and registrations for a Coton de Tulear or any other rare breed. Many registry services require no confirming paperwork before issuing a pedigree. The CTCA has never accepted papers from any of these registries, including papers produced by the "FIC" (Federation of International Canines, not to be confused with the "FCI"). The FIC is the largest all-breed registration service in the United States (note: the AKC and UKC are two registry corporations that do not technically register all pure breeds).

A Conversation with the FIC

On July 2nd, Laurie Spalding (author), posing as someone who wanted to register a Coton without papers, called the Federation of International Canines (FIC) at their Alabama Headquarters. We transcribed the following conversation:

Laurie: "I have a puppy with no papers from Europe. I would like to register it."

FIC: "How old is the puppy?"

Laurie: "Six months."

FIC: "What kind of puppy is it?"

Laurie: "A Coton de Tulear."

FIC: "Does it have any previous registration."

Laurie: "No, my sister brought it back from Europe with her."

FIC: "And it has no papers from the breeder?"

Laurie: "No, the breeder just told her it was a Coton."

FIC: "Well, we can register it, but for breeding purposes, it will have no pedigree."

Laurie: "But, how many people ask to see the pedigree anyhow?"

FIC: "Oh, almost all of them. I can send you the registration papers now, but your best bet would be to have your sister contact the breeder and ask them to send you a pedigree of the dog. It doesn't have to be verified or anything, just have her write down what the pedigree is. Then we can issue a pedigree as well as a registration."

Laurie: "Okay, then I'll ask my sister to check and see if she can find out anything. How much will this cost?"

FIC: "Twenty-five dollars."

Laurie: "Thank you."

Because the FIC will register a dog as a Coton without confirming paperwork, and will even issue an official-looking pedigree on the owner's word alone, our club's registry has never accepted dogs who hold only FIC papers. It follows that our breed parent club, the CTCA, cannot accept registrations produced by other clubs or registry bodies that do accept FIC registrations.

Like the CTCA, the AKC-FSS does not accept papers produced by the FIC either. But, on July 1st, an AKC spokesperson told us that the AKC-FSS does accept registrations from a recent Coton de Tulear show club that does use FIC pedigrees. Hence, at its base, the new AKC-FSS registry may contain dogs who are claimed to be Cotons on the basis of paperwork which requires no verifiable documentation.

Is this just a minor point? You be the judge. Consider a scenario for "laundering" a rare breed diagrammed here...

More Questions than Answers About the AKC-FSS

AKC-FSS registration of the Coton de Tulear began June 7, 1996. As of July 1st, 1997, the AKC-FSS Coton de Tulear database had 15 dogs in it. According to the AKC, only four of those dogs have complete, three-generation pedigrees--a remarkable situation. The Coton de Tulear breed has been in North America since 1974. According to the FCI it has been in Europe since 1977 and now there are more than 14,500 Cotons on the European Continent. The CTCA has almost 600 Cotons in its registry with complete three-generation pedigrees. Why, then, do eleven of the 15 AKC-FSS dogs have such sketchy backgrounds?

According to an AKC spokesman, Cotons that are now called "Founding Stock" will become the basis for the AKC's Official Coton registry "some years from now." And, when the breed is recognized by the AKC, all those founding dogs who have incomplete or absent pedigrees will be "dropped from the AKC registry." It is important to note that the great grandchildren of these unpedigreed dogs will be considered full-blooded AKC Cotons, while their parent's, grandparents, and great-grandparents will be summarily removed from public view. This appears to be a blatant attempt to conceal the flawed base of the AKC registry; we do not know what other explanation could hold for this action.

In our opinion, the AKC-FSS registry is a tree whose roots are fatally flawed. It is remarkable how a registry system, designed by a corporation in this business for a century, could be so badly designed and so easily corrupted. The AKC-FSS gives rare breed clubs more reasons than ever to reject takeover bids by the AKC and to continue to maintain and improve their own registries.

Breeds Whose Autonomy is Threatened

At present, the AKC stands poised to take over nearly three dozen rare breeds. For some few rare breed aficionados, admittance to the AKC is "going bigtime." For most other fanciers, AKC recognition is a serious threat to the integrity and autonomy of the breed's registry, a serious threat to the breed's genetic health, an invitation to puppymill the breed (produce huge quantities of AKC-papered dogs for the pet trade marketplace), and an effective end to a rare breed club's management of their breed.

If a rare breed "goes AKC-FSS," then several things will likely occur: (1) the breed will be split into two or more non-interbreeding populations, and; (2) the appearance of AKC-papered rare breeds in pet shops and animal shelters will soon follow. This is one of the saddest events to befall our own breed in almost a quarter of a century outside its native land.

Even with the unwanted advances of the AKC, rare breed parent clubs can maintain their own registries intact, rigorous, and separate from the AKC-FSS and the future AKC registry. Then as now, educated buyers will seek out rare breeds. Quality and integrity win out when coupled with determination. These considerations are merely a sign of the current times in the dog fancy, where "breed takeovers," unreliable pedigrees, and genetic ruination are seemingly synonymous with the AKC's recognition of a breed.

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