Registration Changes of Selected Breeds
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By Dr. Gerry G. Meisels
It is well-known that AKC registrations have declined by 66% since their high of 1,422,559 in 1993. Hopefully, this decline may have ended in 2014 when registrations were about the same as in 2013. Many hypotheses on causes of the decline have been advanced. Initially the decline was attributed to losing market share to competing registries, but as more information became available it turned out they too lost registrations. More recently it seems like the decline reflects a change in America’s values. One of these is a trend towards utilitarianism. More often than ever I hear the response from purebred pet dog owners: there is no point in my paying to register my dog because I do not plan to breed or show, and I get nothing in return for my money. These people come from all walks of life. They are happy enough that the parents were AKC-registered, and that’s the end of it. Another even bigger contributing factor is the effectiveness of the animal rights (AR) movement. People now speak more proudly of owning a rescue dog than an AKC-registered dog. In addition to the fairly well-financed AR promotions, various TV programs such as those on the Animal Planet and the National Geographic channels have provided well-meaning and reasonable-sounding promotion of the movement away from purebred dogs. One recent show suggested that dog trainers of on-stage trick dogs, and by implication pet buyers, should go to the pound and get the most energetic dog because high energy dogs are easier to train. That neat and plausible argument overlooks that many dogs find themselves in a pound precisely because of behavior problems associated with high energy with which the owners could not deal. Pet owners in general are not professional trainers; their criteria for purchase should be predictability of size, care needs, likely disposition, and other characteristics, but too many people believe that all dogs are alike.
The decline in registration numbers is documented and accessible for all AKC-registered breeds. Registration numbers by breed are expressed by ranking with an emphasis on the top few breeds and changes by percentage. Most long-term breeders have a general idea of how their breed has fared on the registration scale, but that knowledge does not tend to cross breed boundaries very well. Yet looking at registration changes breed by breed may not only lead to better understanding of the decline, but may also suggest that the whole situation is more complex than commonly assumed. Therefore we look at the change over a period of 20 years from 1993 to 2014. The data for 2014 are available online at akc.org. I am indebted to Mr. Jim Crowley, executive secretary of AKC, for providing the data for 1994 when total registrations were at an all-time high.
Total AKC Registrations in 2013 were about one third of those in 1993, a decline of 66%. In the same period, the total of dogs in the US increased from approximately 65 million to about 80 million. That means that the market share of AKC registered dogs decreased even more, from 2.2% to 0.6%, a decline of 73%. But to my surprise, not all breeds’ registrations have decreased.
To get a better understanding of the differences in the decline or growth of registrations, we compared the 70 breeds with the highest registrations in 1993 with those in 2013. These breeds provided 97% of all AKC registrations in 1993. They accounted for 87% of registrations in 2013. Some breeds left and others joined that list but the top 70 breeds in 2013 accounted for 93% of all registrations, not significantly different from 1993.
The graph on the first page displays the number of breeds categorized by the degree of change, in 25% intervals. It is worth noting that French Bulldogs were not on the 1993 top 70 list, but are well within that group in 2013. Their registrations increased from 390 in 1993 to 9,322 in 2013, an increase of 2300%! Frenchies join their bigger cousin, the Bulldog, on the list of those growing in registrations.
The top gainers were Bernese Mountain dogs which grew 148% and Bulldogs which increased 78%. The top losers were Dalmatians and Chow-Chows each of which decreased by 97%. The most important question to ask is why some breeds gained and others lost, but we can only speculate about the reason.
Nine breeds did not lose registrations (Table 1). The difference in change rates from the average of -66% is statistically significant. The top gainers are all relatively large and/or massive dogs, and a substantial majority is smooth-coated. The registrations of nine other breeds decreased more than 90% (Table 2) but it will take a more sophisticated statistical analysis to establish whether the difference from the overall average is significant. Five of these “losers” are non-sporting dogs, and 5 are small dogs. It is tempting to over-interpret these statistics. Correlation with size and coat is just that, a correlation, a speculation, a hypothesis. It does not establish a cause. We can also surmise that Americans have become less interested in smaller dogs and that their tastes have drifted to larger dogs, but there are many breeds with the same characteristics that have lost registrations substantially. Probably the best and simplest reason is that some breeds just seemed to have caught the fancy of Americans. Can we figure out what may have caused that, and promote all purebred dogs on the same basis? If you have any ideas why these breeds stood out from the others, please e-mail me at ggmeisels@yahoo.com. We plan to explore registration-related issues in a future article.
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Posted by ralbee
on Jul 13 2015. Filed under Current Articles, Editorial, Featured.
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