Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Public Service Announcement: AKC Survey About Dog Shows

Yeah, I know. I know how the last survey went -- but if you like conformation shows and want our sport to stick around, then here's your chance to speak up and suggest ways in which AKC can make some changes to benefit the sport.

The rest of this post is copied and pasted directly from the email...
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The American Kennel Club Board and Staff are currently considering ways to attract and retain participants in the conformation sport. The objective is to consider changes which will result in a better experience for Clubs, exhibitors, and the general public. The goals are to improve entries, level of participation, and, in turn, the financial performance of our show giving Clubs. The information you provide will be summarized and be presented to the Board of Directors in August. As active members of the dog fancy you understand the challenges the conformation sport is facing and we are sure you have ideas on how to improve our sport. What we seek are ideas.ideas on how to improve the conformation show, thoughts on how to attract new people into the sport, and ways to attract the general public to shows so they can learn what purebred dogs are and ! why purp osely bred dogs are important. We have divided this request into 3 parts.shows, new exhibitors, and the general public. We are asking you to provide you ideas, brief and concise as possible in these three areas. You do not have to complete all three sections.just the area(s) where you have a point of view. While contact information is not required it would be helpful in case follow up is needed to better understand an idea. All input will reported anonymously and it is recognized, due to the short timeframe, that your views are not necessarily those of your Club. http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/ WEB22AWMCSHGMT

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

If AKC could figure out a way that handlers could stay in business and owners could also be competitive without having to hire a handler, the problem would be solved.

blogdog said...

I hear you. In all of the shows where I've stewarded since the rules change, I have only had one person enter the Amateur Owner-Handler class -- a junior. When the change was being floated around, a lot of people felt that entering the new AOH class would automatically brand you as not knowing what you were doing -- but I just haven't seen anyone using it, period.