Kennel Club press release - Page 1

David and Sue, Thanks for mailing the contents of the release. It will be interesting to see how many clubs reply to the K.C. directive, I was led to believe the Partnership requested all clubs to forward the K.C. letters to them, so they could negotiate directly with the K.C. I can live with some of the K.C. demands, but they are demanding clubs report on anyone who fails to comply with their rules and expect committees, or A another, to report on judges who fail to judge as the K.C. insist, within 7 days. It looks like the K.C. mean to crack down hard, and the only carrot is you keep you're C.C. Is this press release a cross roads for the breed, and where will it end up. regards Bill Owen. 

Are the kennel club prepared to instigate registration of puppies ONLY from Health checked parents?

If not?  Why the hell not??? and why isn't this being put to the national press?

 
Hi Bill,  
I dont believe ANY clubs should jump on this particular shovel.   When you read each "demand" slowly it is manipulative, difficult to maintain for clubs at very best - and leaves every club that signs up to it in danger of being told that they have not "done it right" and will still lose their CC`s the following time.
I am appalled - read No. 9 - it almost guarantees the KC the monopoly on exhibiting dogs  An urgent meeting is necessary for all secretaries of all GSd clubs to attend, to fully understand the implications of this latest press release.
The GSDP have been treated very shoddily, and in actual fact, what the KC are really meaning is that they were working in too professional a manner for them.  Too straightforward, too correctly, and leaving nothing hidden under carpets - this didnt suit the KC`s agenda which is very much hidden.

Lets just look at the beginning of the KC press release on demands for GSDS clubs.  -   it reads......


1. The Club recognises that it will not be allocated Kennel Club Challenge Certificates for German Shepherd Dogs (Alsatian) unless it signifies agreement of the conditions set out below and provides written confirmation of such agreement by the Club’s Secretary and Chairman.

So ----- here goes the pen pushing again..... and how broad a statement have they made to adhere to....and all done by volunteers !!!  people who are dog fanciers, not Clerk of the Works - some secretaries and chairpersons are doing this job for the good of their club and know little of the breed even - and we are very glad to have them on board giving their time for nothing, now we have to ask them to start signing declarations that are so broad and sweeping, and can get their club into trouble SO EASILY - and FOR WHAT   ???   C.C.`s for a couple of their exhibitors??  And whats more - here is the sting - they know that secretaries of other dog clubs are not having to do any such thing.  Do they then not have problems with their breed?  the breed King Charles comes into mind.

2. The Club accepts that there is a degree of unsoundness in the hindquarters of the breed and in particular in the hocks of some dogs and that these problems are to be penalised at shows.

Wow - now they want secretaries and chairpersons to accept.  So lets go through the scenario.  The club accepts that ther are problems.   I would be very disgruntled as an exhibitor with sound animals, if that was a sweeping across the board agreement. Whatever does it mean    ?   "a degree of unsoundness"  -  is this like a "touch of entropian" or "slight hip dysplasia" or a "mild carginogenic tumour" -  "very slight torsion"   all of which have never been diagnosed by a vet???

Any club that accepts that one, is on a hiding to nothing.  At the slightest whim the KC will get out their 2010 signatures after the show that has cost a lot of money and time, and penalise the club for not seeing that -  "in their field officers opinion" - visiting their Championship show he felt some animals were unsound and not penalised.   OK - lets get penalising.  Is the committee of the show - working hard on the day - supposed to also watch the judge and his judging and , jump off our chair, go to the judge and remind him, in full swing of the show?  Do we stop him judgng and give all monies back to exhibitors - do we ignore it and have our CC`s taken for our next Ch show - or do we disagree to

See below

Yes Mo, and the most disgraceful thing about the senario above is that the guy breeding from dog with 54 hip score can also be a KC ACCREDITED BREEDER because the KC only requirement is that you Hip Score the dogs you use, how high the hip score is , is irrelevant. So much for the KC Health & Welfare initiatives eh!!

As for the KC's latest press release - not that I am necessarily advocating that Running round the ring like mad idiots to outside attract ones dog is the correct way to behave at shows, can someone please explain to me what the Hell this has to do with the Health and Welfare of the dogs themselves? Or how this particular activity ranks more highly in the KC's Health and Welfare of Pedigree Dogs than does breeding from High Hip Scored parents, heamophiliacs, dogs with breathing problems, skin problems, eye problems, brains too big for their skull problems etc etc. Oh and yes while you are at it could someone also explain to me that as Secretary of a Club what exactly I am supposed to do if one of our judges puts up what I consider to be an unsound animal? Do I run in the ring shouting to the judge that he/she cant give that animal a 1st place whilst at the same time retrieving the red card from the exhibitors grasp? Indeed, if say for example I had signed this undemocratic declaration of KC bondage, thus relinquishing my human rights to run a show under any other rules than those of the KC wouldnt I have to jump in any other show ring whenever I saw a judge distributing prize cards to an animal I considered to be unsound? Hey Mo, might find you there too, we could be in and out of rings like jumping beans. Then again who is going to decide which one of us has assessed the animals soundness (or lack of it) correctly?
If the judge thinks the animal is Sound but I think it Not, who would be the adjudicator here? The animals would all have gone home by the time the KC got involved. Same as double handling, if I say that person coughing is attracting their dog but they say they have a bad chest infection who is the KC to believe? Besides, if as the KC say there are all these judges putting up UNSOUND animals and all these Clubs allowing all this double handling then why the hell havent the KC already stricken these judges off their judging lists and stripped these clubs of their CC';s??? Why do we all now to start signing sodding contracts that are ONLY APPLICABLE to GSD's Breed Club Secretarys ./ Chairpersons.? It makes no sense unless one accepts it as what it actually is, bully boy victimisation.

CONTINUED BELOW

Continued from above

Another thing no-one appears to have picked up on is the fact that the Club Secs / Chairpersons who sign up to this Declaration of KC Bondage MUST then ADHERE to the terms otherwise surely their own integrity would be in question? How could they agree to sign a contract that they had no intention of enforceing? Wouldnt that be dishonest? Then consider this senario, if you were on the committee of one of the clubs who lost its CC;s because they refused to sign up to these Bully Boy Tactics, would'nt you be more than a little p*ss*d off if you attended a show whose committee had signed the KC contract because they hadnt the balls to do otherwise, but then did nothing to enforce the things they had signed up to? I would be more than a bit miffed myself, I can tell you.

Will the KC make me into a hypocrite, NO it wont!! If my committee want me to sign this darn contract then it will darn well better accept that I will report anyone (with NO EXCEPTIONS) who run around attracting their dogs. I SIMPLY REFUSE TO JEOPARODIZE MY INTEGRITY FOR THE SAKE OF THOSE WHO WANT TO BREAK THE RULES THAT I HAVE TO SIGN MY LIFE AWAY TO ENFORCE. Personally I do not want to sign the declaration, I cannot see any reason why the KC cant be prepared to allow Breed Club shows to provide a specific area so that those who want to run around attracting their dogs can do so safely within a designated area.

Its time we all stopped pussy footing around the KC, either we ALL SIGN THE BLOODY CONTRACT and ENFORCE THE NO DOUBLE HANDLING rule to the letter OR we ALL REFUSE TO SIGN IT AND GET ON WITH HOLDING OUR PREFERED TYPE OF SHOWS, When it comes to the Health and Welfare of the GSD I think the latter is in the breeds Best Interests and the KC have made it very easy for us to ENSURE this is the only route left for us all to take, everybody else just reports those that sign the contract and then dont adhere to rules within it. See how easy the KC divide and conquer !!

Regards
Sue b

 In my reply to this thread am speaking on my own behalf and not any organization I belong to, this I want to make clear before I air my views.
The current situation we find ourselves in is no more than what the Kennel Club set out in the first place to achieve when they they first mentioned the loss of our CC`s. Unfortunately they did not expect us to pick up on the health issues in the way we have and so they have reverted back to their original script. Any GSD enthusiast who has had the chance to read their latest release will want to know what we as a Group GSDP has been doing in the past year ? All those who attended the recent meeting set up by the Breed Council know the answer to this and although the Kennel Club were invited they did not attend. So what do we do now? Meetings appeared to be the way forward but seem to be a waste of time and fall on deaf ears when we take our proposed plans to the Kennel Club. I personally believe this is the time to close ranks and for the Breed Clubs to ask their membership how they want to vote on this current press release. The secretary's alone should not have to make this decision( read Sue B) and remember have only been given a few days to do so. Somehow a list needs to be drawn up so we are all up to date on how each club has voted and their reply to the Kennel Club. Over the next couple of days with us all being stuck in doors because of the weather , look up the current membership of your Club and contact them( by telephone ) ask their views and publish this on the Data Base. With the e.mail facility available which most members have, records of the replies can be kept to ensure no one can dispute their conversations at a later date. Unless we take up this challenge we are dead in the water. Both BAGSD and the League would probably have a problem with this because of the membership numbers but I know other clubs could manage due to the amount of paid up Members they claim to have. Unless a yes or no list to the letter is drawn up quickly we are finished. Please keep this thread going so one by one the Clubs will be listed who are going to sign or not sign , at the moment I cannot see any other way forward unless someone has a better idea .    John Ward
PS this is a Kennel Club plan with a few days to reply to keep us disjointed