Introducing 'The Growler'

Not everyone who shows and breeds dogs is happy with the dog world staying the way it is. More and more progressive breeders covertly email me saying they want change too but are too afraid to rock the boat, because when they do speak out Champ show judging appointments mysteriously dry up - or winning becomes a lot less frequent!
One of these potential reformers has offered to be an occasional contributor to this blog and I really am looking forward to hearing future contributions.
I look forward to a day when sensible moderates like the Growler can feel at liberty to speak their mind without fear or retribution.

THE KENNEL CLUB - FIT FOR FUNCTION?

Is our Kennel Club fit for modern times?
I often ask myself this as an 'ordinary' dog person.
There seem to be two lines coming across from our 'higher ups'.
The public persona of 'we are all things to all dogs' wanting to be involved in all doggie decisions at government level and their favourite excuse of "we are just a registry"
There are a growing number of breeders and show people who are fed up of toeing the party line. That are feeling increasingly under pressure as the public sees breeders 'as all as bad as each other’.
We have the Accredited Breeder Scheme.
Join up, pay extra for the privilege - knowing full well that puppy farmers and bad breeders are also members.
And then there’s the new trend of non ABS breeders lying on their adverts saying they are accredited.
The Kennel Club does nothing and even if non-members are reported to them - they will still continue to register their puppies.
We have a telephone directory sized book of rules, many totally out of date - but few are enforced by the KC with any vigor (in fact us exhibitors often have to pay to report when rules are being broken).
Very few registrations are ever refused.
In fact for every new rule or edict there is a loophole and the KC then throw their hands up in the air and repeat 'but we are just a registry'.
Please Kennel Club, wake up and smell the coffee - either make yourself truly the club for all dogs and reform - or be just a registry and stop pretending to be more. You could do a huge amount to reduce the growing dog problem in this country just by tightening up your rules and stopping the unchecked registration of thousands of badly bred, unhealth-checked and farmed puppies.
A simple solution would be don't register a litter without a vets certificate - surely not beyond you to implement.
The excuse of ‘we register so we can influence the bad breeders’ doesn't hold water. As another writer in the show dog press stated, The KC have been saying that for so many years but they don't seem to have influenced the bad breeders yet!
The Growler