Where Have All The Puppies Gone?

By Peri Norman

A friend and I were discussing upcoming shows, entries and points. In the course of the conversation, she bemoaned the fact that entries are down in her breed at all the shows because no one had any puppies last year. While there are many factors that contribute to entries at the dog show, from perceived quality of judges and attractiveness of the venue, to the scheduling of specialty club meetings and maybe a particularly desirable trophy, the bottom line reality of our sport is that we need puppies. Puppies are sold to buyers who may be long-time competitors in dog sports or they may go to people who haven’t yet experienced the joy of a Winners ribbon or a qualifying agility run. We can talk about improving our events. We can encourage and support beginners. We can join a club and help put on an event. But in the end, we must have puppies. Nothing we do can motivate a person like the sweet smell of puppy breath and the promise of years of companionship.

In the not too distant past, I mentored a gal with her first show dog. Seven years later, she owns three champion dogs and has bred a number of litters. I think it is important to note that she had owned the breed of her choice since childhood, but only recently as an established professional in her career did she decide to try showing. Once she got that first ribbon, the progression to breeding was easy because she already had a life-long passion for her breed. Other breeders thanked me for mentoring her (actually, the breeder she bought her first show dog from did most of the heavy lifting, not the least of which was selling her a lovely show quality bitch). “Our breed needs new, young breeders,” they would say. Yes, we do! No breed is excluded from this need. Experienced breeders realize that educating and nurturing the next generation of breeders is every bit as important as raising the pups themselves.

Our sport has changed dramatically in just the last twenty-plus years. In the words of Lisa Dubé Forman, “Since 1992, the AKC registry has experienced momentous losses in dog registrations and if you are not up-to-date on these losses, the numbers are alarming. AKC’s peak year for registrations was 1992 with approximately 1.5 million dogs registered. In 2010, the total annual AKC dog registrations was 563,611. This is a staggering 63% decrease in annual dog registrations…” To put it another way, 2010 saw about one million dogs less registered than just eighteen years earlier in 1992. It’s mind boggling!

The leadership of the American Kennel Club last reported registration numbers back in 2010. The second sentence of the 2016 Annual report reads, “The year saw an overall 8 percent increase in registrations”, but since we have not received actual numbers for the past five years, that figure really doesn’t tell us what we need to know. Hiding information from the breeders and fanciers does not help any of us address the issues at hand. It certainly has not reduced the amount of criticism or negative legislation directed at the purebred fancy. All it has done is deprived us of important information that will help us track our progress. A savvy observer will not be fooled by the reporting of increasing registration income versus actual registration numbers. While getting more dogs registered (in large part through participants in the Breeder of Merit program) is wonderful, that money still comes from the faithful core, not necessarily from new breeders joining the ranks and breeding more puppies.

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Posted by Alex on Jun 12 2017. Filed under Current Articles, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.