German Shepherd Dog Club of America Wins Herding Group at Meet the Breeds in New York

By Dr. Carmen L, Battaglia

The 11th Annual AKC Meet the Breeds was held at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City, January 25th-26th, 2020. AKC is the sponsor of Meet the Breeds which is an event that showcases each breed for the general public. This gives individuals and families the opportunity to meet (and more importantly, play with!)  more than 150 different dog breeds.  Each breed sponsors its own booth and provides the staff, materials, pictures and live dogs needed for the public to see and touch. Booths are judged by a panel of AKC selected judges. Criteria used in judging includes: education, materials and friendliness.  Booth competition is by breed and Group. This year’s winner of the Herding Group was the GSDCA.

The chaired of the judging for the booths was Joseph Neil McGinnis, III. The GSDCA booth chairperson for the past 10 years has been Carolyn Gerganoff.  She organizes the booth and recruits a friendly and likeable staff with several dogs. Under her leadership, the GSDCA booth has won first place seven out of ten years. This year the GSDCA booth included nine staff and eight dogs. An estimated 3,000 people visited the booth and were able to take pictures with the staff and dogs and learn about the breed, the GSDCA, OFA hip evaluations etc. Many handouts were available for the public to enjoy. A special feature at the booth was Mike Andrel, a GSDCA member and a Police Officer /K-9 handler for Darby Township Police Department,  Pennsylvania, in full uniform with his two dogs. The public and the kids loved asking questions and taking pictures.

In the past, Meet the Breeds was held in conjunction with the Westminster Dog Show. The usual location was the NY Piers, which are no longer available.  The Javits Center is the new home for Meet the Breeds. It is a large modern facility ideal for this kind of event. Attendance on Saturday exceeded 20,000. In addition to the more than 150 breed booths there was food, clothing, stuffed dog toys, dog food and dog products which could be purchased. In the middle of the event space was a large demonstration ring that was used by the AKC Dog Detection Task Force (ADDTF) and the NYPD to host four demonstrations about what police dogs and their handlers do to protect the city and the NY transit system. There is a national need to develop a domestic supply for these dogs and AKC breeders are doing their part. The US government currently purchases 80-90% of its detection and patrol dogs from Europe breeders. The ADDTF has over 40 GSD breeders who have committed to breeding one litter to help fight the shortage of detection dogs. The efforts of the AKC and the GSD breeders will in time make a difference.

For general information about the AKC Dog Detection Task contact: Mellissa Ferrell:  Program Manager, Melissa.Ferrell@akc.org (919) 816-3577. AKC Task Force breeding program consultant: Scott Thomas at scott@purposeraisedpup.com _ (210) 392- 4109.

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Posted by chesliepickett on Mar 10 2020. 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.