Page 38 - ShowSight Express, October 27 2020

LINES FROM LINDA: AKC DETECTION DOG TASK FORCE
Patriotic Puppy Program participant “Mini” sits with
owner Sharon Smith of Greenville, South Carolina.
Photo courtesy of Gabrielle Miller, ©gabriellegracePHOTOGRAPHY
A second part of the new educational programming includes development of Confident Puppy, a new AKC Canine College course that provides a new, broader focus, and provides a more structured approach to understanding the fundamentals of raising a confident puppy that could go on for advanced training as a detec- tion dog, service dog, or a well-trained competitor or pet.
WHY ARE SO FEW US BRED DOGS BEING TRAINED AND USED AS DETECTION DOGS?
There are a number of reasons this is happening. These include:
• The Department of Defense, which purchases many of the military and TSA dogs, typically wants to purchase 50 or 100 dogs at a time. Typical individual Sporting breeders can’t provide those kinds of numbers.
• Years of anti-breeder laws and the animal rights agenda have resulted in discouraging potential breeders from pro- ducing the kind of dogs needed.
• The extra effort associated with government contracts is a hurdle many of our breeders currently aren’t interested in dealing with.
• Most dogs aren’t bought until about 8-10 months of age, well beyond the age that most breeders can keep large numbers of dogs.
• There’s also lack of transparency about the real cost of what it takes to breed, raise and deploy a successful explosives detection dog. This is a problem the AKC Government Relations team is working on now.
The year 2020 was designated as the year of
the breeder by the AKC Board. Our breeders are the heart and soul of the AKC, and with their 20/20 vision they have continued to produce the best American purpose-bred dogs in the world.
—Chris Sweetwood
“Typically, the outright purchase cost for a dog in Europe may be cheaper, however when you consider the number of dogs pur- chased overseas that never make it through the full training cycle, we believe it can be more efficient to purposefully breed and train the dogs here in the US where we can also study the pedigrees, genetics, health tests, and other traits of the dogs so that we really understand how dogs succeed in these programs; we can select for those traits, and we also can monitor the care and conditions with which they are raised. This is a concern about some of the overseas kennels from which our governments are obtaining these dogs. We haven’t heard a lot about this yet, but in the future, I think we will,” explained Sheila Goffe.
Thoughts by AKC Board Member and Co-Chair of the Detec- tion Dog Task Force Chris Sweetwood are right on target as we welcome Stacey West. As Chris notes, “The year 2020 was desig- nated as the year of the breeder by the AKC Board. Our breeders are the heart and soul of the AKC, and with their 20/20 vision they have continued to produce the best American purpose-bred dogs in the world. The Patriotic Puppy Program is a tribute to their efforts and as we step into the future we know they will produce the best American purpose-bred dogs for our first responders. We value their continued support and patriotism, and look forward to the future as our program enters its final phase. With Stacey working with breeders, I have no doubt this three-tiered approach will take our program to exciting new levels of success!”
For more information, go to https:www.akc.org/AKC-detection- dog-task-force/ or contact Melissa Ferrell, Program Manager, at Melissa.ferrell@akc.org and 919-816-3577.