Goldendoodle World

Sometime in 2007 or 2008, I had blogged about the American Kennel Club being dismayed with the popularity of Goldendoodles and Labradoodles. They pretty much wrote an article ranting about how designer /mixed breed dogs are an insult to purebred dog fanciers and the entire article put down breeders for creating "designer" dogs. Lo and behold, I went to the AKC website to research my  German Shorthaired Pointer's  lineage/ancestry and found they had a new article claiming that beginning October 1, 2009, dog owners can begin registering their "mixed breed dogs" with the American Kennel Club and receive an AKC id number.

This news goes against everything that the American Kennel Club originally stood for. They now claim this new program fits in with their over all message for being responsible dog owners, breeders, yada, yada, yada. Now, don't get me wrong. I am not complaining that AKC is now allowing mixed breed dogs into their registry program. That is all fine and dandy. I personally left the American Kennel Club back in the late 90s for what I felt was a much better kennel club, Universal Kennel International. Why did I leave AKC? Because in the late 90s I had sold a female Toy Poodle to a woman in Georgia after I felt the dog wasn't a good match for my male Toy Poodle. Both were in my breeding program back then. I had the two dogs together for a year and we had not been able to get a litter during that time. I knew that my male Toy Poodle was very capable of siring a litter so I felt the female more than likely wasn't a good match for him. Within four weeks of the female Toy Poodle being in the woman's possession, I received an email from an anonymous person that the dog had a litter of puppies and that the woman had registered the litter with the  American Kennel Club  claiming HER male Toy Poodle was the sire. Well, I went back and looked at my receipt and the dates just didn't jive for her Toy Poodle to be the father to that litter. She didn't feel or look pregnant when I sold her but according to the date, she had to have been 4 weeks pregnant and she wouldn't have been showing at that stage of pregnancy. I contacted the woman and told her she would have to either give me the litter of puppies or pay for the entire litter. I sold her the female dog, not offspring that was produced by my sire. I also told her that I was contacting the kennel club because she had improperly registered the litter. I called AKC and filed a complaint and I had asked them to have this woman produce a DNA test proving that her male Toy Poodle was the sire and not mine. I was more than willing to produce evidence that my male Toy Poodle was the sire and not hers.

I completely had expected AKC to check into this situation since their website is full of claims of responsible breeding and so on. What did they do? They told me that they could not involve themselves with a "breeder dispute" and that they were nothing more than a "registrant service". I could not believe my ears. This coming from a club that makes the claims on their website about responsible breeding and how they care about the breeders who are affiliated with their club. When they refused to have this woman produce DNA evidence to prove whether or not her Toy Poodle was the sire to the produced litter after I sent them copies of the sale date, etc....I withdrew all of my dogs from their kennel club. I then re-registered all of my dogs with Universal Kennel Club International.

After withdrawing from their kennel club, they actually had the audacity to send a representative to my home some years later asking me to allow the representative to look over my records and gather DNA from my dogs. I told the representative that my dogs were already registered with a different kennel club and they could take themselves back to their office in Raligh, NC and go be the "registrant service" they claimed to be when I needed their assistance back in the late 90s. I was no longer a member of AKC, nor were my dogs and as far as I was concerned, they had no right asking me for anything. They had not come to my home asking me for records regarding the Toy Poodle or DNA evidence and that is what I had thought they were asking for. Now had he asked me for this, I would have complied. But they were not at my home regarding the Toy Poodle. I had not registered a single litter with AKC after pulling my dogs out of their club, so of course I was very angry that they had the nerve to make any requests from me since they were unwilling to assist me with the woman in Georgia. I even told the American Kennel Club that now there was an entire litter of Toy Poodles out there with incorrect AKC documentation and if THOSE dogs breed with other dogs, their entire lineage of information is a lie! If they did this with me, just how many other dogs in their kennel club actually might be improperly registered with improper lineage information? I was reeling with anger at AKC over their lack of integrity.

What I am discussing in this blog is the fact that back in 2007/2008, I specifically blogged that the American Kennel Club always seemed to jump on a "breed" band wagon as soon as a breed becomes popular. They've done this since the day they became a kennel club. It is of no secret that the American Kennel Club is all about the big bucks. They have laughed all the way to the bank for decades.

The American Kennel Club wants owners to believe that this new program for mixed breed dogs will benefit the dog as well as the dog owner. The truth is, it won't be long before the American Kennel Club will start promoting its own "standards" regarding designer dogs, mixed breed dogs and particularly the Goldendoodle or Labradoodle to bring in millions of dollars to their bank account. This opens the door for breeders to proclaim that their Goldendoodle puppies or mixed breed, designer dogs are now superior to dogs registered with different kennel clubs simply because they were assigned an AKC id number. Goldendoodle breeders will now proclaim their Goldendoodles are AKC registered and therefore of high quality than those registered with various other kennel clubs. Mark my words, I see the writing on the wall and the ink hasn't even dried yet from the board of directors of the American Kennel Club. Unfortunately many consumers are not aware of the deceitful practices of AKC. Maybe now they've cleaned up their act but that doesn't remove the fact that before they began their DNA profiling program, they allowed dogs to be registered improperly and there is no telling how many hundreds of dogs have incorrect lineage/ancestry information due to their lax attitude from years past. The kennel club we are now affiliated with stands behind their breeders and they have been more help to me over the years than AKC has ever been. Unfortunately, AKC has always been about the money, not customer service. The only service from AKC that has been of help to me is being able to obtain lineage/ancestry documentation over the internet and sometimes I still question whether that information is even correct, given my experience with this kennel club.

For years, many breeders affiliated with the American Kennel Club, have always made claims to those seeking a canine, that their puppies or dogs were superior to those registered with other kennel clubs. I completely disagree given my experience with the American Kennel Club. Had they stood by me as a breeder and assisted me when I needed them the most, I would not even have an issue with AKC. The notion that AKC is superior to any other kennel club is completely outrageous especially given the fact that there are kennel clubs all around the world who are NOT affiliated with AKC. The unfortunate aspect of it all is that potential customers believe that dogs who have an AKC identification number are better quality than those who do not and even I had the same notion prior to my raw incident. This was a huge wake up call for me. It is also a fact that hundreds of breeders left the American Kennel Club the same year that I did and it didn't surprise me. Breeders who are fanatics and pro AKC will make the claim that the American Kennel Club is better because it means their dogs are purebreds but after finding out they tell breeders they don't get involved with "breeder disputes" and that they are nothing more than a "registrant service", they will have to experience a similiar situation before finding out the truth about AKC.

Quality does not begin with the kennel club that a dog is registered with. Quality begins with the breeder and his or her decisions that affect the offspring produced. Quality begins with the breeder's integrity and honesty regarding the dogs they create and breed. The American Kennel Club states that they decided to create the mixed breed program after "extensive research". I personally believe that this "extensive research" was finding out how much revenue this new program was going to bring in for AKC. By not allowing mixed breed dogs to be registered with their kennel club, they were losing potential millions to those kennel clubs who were registering designer dogs and mixed breed dogs alike. Designer dogs began to become popular in the United States in 2001. I knew when I began breeding for Goldendoodles back in 1999, it was only a matter of time before the American Kennel Club would dip its hands into the doodle pot. According to AKC, their new program requires that mixed breed dogs who are given an AKC id number, must be spayed or neutered. AKC will charge each owner a $35 registration fee. This is a hefty fee to pay considering right now, they are requiring all of the registered dogs to be altered just to obtain an AKC id. Yeah, sure, they are throwing you a bone of a few extras, but their fee is still absurd. I guarantee that sometime in the future, AKC will lift this restriction and allow full registration to breeders of mixed breed dogs so they can then register entire litters with AKC. The more money they can bring into their kennel club, the merrier.

Dogs who are mixed breed, hybrid or purebred and who are altered, should still be registered with a kennel club for identification purposes and I am all for that. Their actual registration serves no other purpose if the dog is altered. AKC claims they are all about responsible breeding; that they are all for spaying and neutering and yet, they do NOT allow purebred dogs who are competing in dog shows to be spayed or neutered. This kennel club has always been about saying one thing and doing another. Did you know that in Europe, dogs are NOT allowed to have their tail docked and ears croppped? They are disqualified if altered in any way. AKC requires competing dogs to have their tail docked and ears cropped knowing how painful ear cropping is to the dog, itself. Tail docking isn't so painful when done a few days after birth, but ear cropping is completed after the dog is much older and there is a lot of pain involved! We ask all of our customers to send in the registration form that we provide to them so that their Goldendoodle can be registered with our affiliated kennel club. The purpose is to have their doodle identified through registration documents. We also recommend they have their Goldendoodle puppy or dog micro-chipped. Kennel registration can be done for $15. I love the fact that our affiliated kennel club offers registration documents where your dogs' photo can be placed upon the form as well as the dogs' DNA or microchip information. If your dog becomes stolen, the registration identifies your canine and becomes an important piece of "evidence" that you are the owner and the dog actually is who the form says it is. The American Kennel Club has always charged an outrageous fee and people buy into the notion that if they register their canine with this kennel club, their dogs are now somehow much better than those who are not affiliated.

I remember back in 1999 when I received a very hateful phone call from the Golden Retriever Club who was outraged over the fact we had intentionally bred our Golden Retrievers to Poodles in order to create Goldendoodle offspring. They were so incensed in fact over the idea of these doodle dogs, they wrote a blog about it on their website. The blog was basically to put down the Goldendoodle dog and those who created them or bred them. Purebred dog fanciers and dog owner fanatics rolled over in anger, spewing their venon on various dog forums. Can you now imagine what they are thinking after word came out that the American Kennel Club was now allowing Goldendoodles and mixed breed dogs alike, to be registered and affiliated with their kennel club? I can't help myself even now, from wondering how the canine fanatics will ever survive knowing their purebred pals are now sharing the same kennel club with "mutts". Surely you jest? Purebred dog fanciers and fanatics enjoy putting down the mutts and designer dogs. They fail to stop and remember that the purebred dog was once a mixed breed dog...a mutt, if you will, before dog fanciers tagged them with a fancy name and formed clubs after proclaiming their "mix" was now purebred. Well, move over rover....AKC has now come to the realization, like millions of others in the United States, that the designer dogs and mutts alike are here to stay and they are NOT a "one night wonder".

*About the author: Dee Gerrish of Goldendoodle World has been a private, professional, hobby breeder since 1996. She began creating Goldendoodles in 1999 and has written extensively about the Goldendoodle dog. More can be read on her website at http://www.goldendoodleworld.com/