AKC Delegate Report

13-14th March 2023 - Newark

Canine Health Foundation: The AKC National Parent Club Health Conference will be in held in St Louis on Aug 13-15. While only one person can attend in person, there will be the availability to attend virtually for $60. Registration should open around May 31st.

The Dog Aging Project is still on-going. The goal of the Dog Aging Project is to understand how genes, lifestyle, and environment influence aging. We want to use that information to help pets and people increase healthspan, the period of life spent free from disease. Check out https://dogagingproject.org/about-project/ for more information. 

The Purebred Preservation Bank continues to move forward with the first pilot project donations. The VCA will need to start a discussion on how we will be involved with preserving semen. I can’t stress enough that before you destroy any frozen semen or know of someone considering destroying their samples, please reach out. I’d be happy to offer some ideas. The semen will be important for not only preserving the breed but to also be available for future research. 

The Canine College is creating a multitude of new courses that will help breeders. New courses include TCI’s, at home whelping and shipping semen. If you haven’t checked out the current courses available, I encourage you to do so. They can be found at: https://www.caninecollege.akc.org/visitor_class_catalog

The AKC DNA Department is in the process of doing a Genetic Diversity Project. The AKC DNA Program is collecting DNA from 4000 dogs for whole genome sequencing. The canine genome was built on one dog, a boxer. As technology improves and becomes more affordable, more and more canine genomes can be generated to add to our knowledge. The AKC DNA Program’s Genetic Diversity Project is an exciting new initiative to develop the world’s premier database of canine genomic information. This database will generate whole genome sequences of 4000 dogs, representing all AKC-recognized breeds. Using AKC’s rich historical pedigrees, these dogs will represent the genetic diversity of breeds today. The VCA will be participating by swabbing dogs at our upcoming NSCE. Goal is to collect cheek swabs from 100 Vizslas. 

Parent Club Committee: Time for some scary statistics. Less than 7% of all dogs registered are bred by people who belong to their parent club. Less than 20% of all dogs registered are bred by people who are in any type of dog sport. So that means, 13% of breeders in the fancy do not belong to their parent clubs.  Sadly, 80% of all dogs bred in a single year are bred by high volume breeders or casual (back yard, just want to have a litter, or oops) breeders. In 2022, there were 190,000 different individuals that registered a litter with the AKC which resulted in an increase of casual breeders by 6.8%. On an average year, the US population buys approximately 7.5 million puppies telling us that millions of puppies are sold by individuals that provide no mentoring or assistance to their buyers. 

While there are millions of people with new puppies each year, we often hear the woes of membership dropping in many of our clubs. We need to change our ways. There are many, many individuals out there looking for mentoring. Those individuals are the future of our breeds. The AKC Club relations department, Guy Fisher wants to help us find those new members. Any club can reach out to him. 

Meet The Breed: Over 25,000 individuals attended in NYC. The next events will be in Chicago on Aug 26-27 and Columbus on Oct 14. AKC expects over 80,000 total attendees at this year’s events. 

This &That: The 4-to-6-month baby puppy competition will remain. 71% of puppies that competed at that level went on to compete in the regular classes.

Junior Showmanship: The Canine partner (mixed breed) option for juniors is being discontinued. During the test period, only 15 juniors competed using that option.

Scent Work continues to grow. The AKC is encouraging creating Scent Work Specific Clubs. 

The “buddy” hunt program for the Junior Hunt Test is moving forward. A handler has an additional person walk their brace so that they may mentor/educate the individual about the hunt test and handling a dog. Only one person may actually handle the dog. The other is an observer only.

Status of Sports – Full year 2022 versus 2019 (previous high). Agility – minus 1.4%; Fast CAT® increase 195.1%; Scent Work increase 53.7%; Rally Increase 13.8%; Obedience minus 7.2%; AKC Temperament Test increase 351.1%; and Tracking minus 11.2%. 

The much-anticipated Stewarding 101 course is close to launch. This course, directed by Mr. Spung to be developed to educate interested individuals the fundamentals of stewarding, will be available in the AKC Canine College at no cost. The Certified Steward program will launch concurrently which will also be at no cost. A list of “AKC Certified Stewards” will be published on the AKC website similar to parent club approved mentors, providing a resource to clubs who may be in the need of a ring steward or stewards.

Feel free to reach out to me anytime!

AKC Delegate

Kathy Rust

kathy@kizmar.com