by Elezabeth Peters

Created on: December 31, 2008

The Kennel Clubs and all specialized breed clubs need to take a stand now and begin to repair the chaos caused by the completely ineffectual way they have handled their rules on breeding, registration and conformation.

The Kennel Club in Britain is currently feeling the sting from a recent television program that exposed many of its shortcomings. In the aftermath of that program the Dogs Trust - a very high profile British rescue organisation, the SPCA which of course needs no introduction, and Pedigree dog foods, have all dissociated themselves from the annual Crufts Show and other events run by The Kennel Club and specific breed clubs. This ban will operate until the clubs show a concentrated effort to make the health of dogs their priority rather than conformity to a debilitating, but demanded, breed shape.

Kennel Clubs worldwide are notorious for their lack of control where their breeders are concerned - after all, the breeders are their meal tickets. Take away the breeders and there are no membership fees, no registrations, no show entries, and no very lucrative business. So they have largely taken a background stance, registered dogs and accepted memberships on application, and done not much at all about the often questionable practices of their members. Many such clubs are seen by the more money-hungry breeders as a tool with which to legitimize the underhand way they run their businesses.

One rather prominent anomaly internationally is that in some countries the conformation standard of the breeds is set by the Kennel Club. In other countries the standard is set by each breed's specific official breed club. This has led to situations such as that in New Zealand at present. The New Zealand Kennel Club sets the breed standard for all breeds, and has accepted the "silver Labrador" as a pedigree under the 'chocolate' classification, because "the American Kennel Club has accepted it". However, the anomaly is that the American Kennel Club does not set the standard - the national Labrador Club sets the standard and states it will "never accept a silver Labrador, as that colour does not exist in the pedigree Labrador gene pool".

So the New Zealand Kennel Club has made a clown of itself by accepting and registering 'silver' Labradors that are now being sold as show dogs to unsuspecting buyers. At their first attempt at showing such dogs the owners have been told "Sorry, weimaraners are the next group" by their usually international judges. This situation the Kennel

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