AKC Controversy
To the average dog owner, the rules and regulations of some national dog registry associations like the American Kennel Club (AKC) can seem unusual, to say the least. Whilst you would expect a puppy registered by the American Kennel Club to be a high-quality, healthy purebred, this is not always the case. You can only be certain of getting a puppy with a recognized pedigree. The health of the puppy’s parents and ancestry, and the quality of the breeder, are not monitored by them. To a lot of dog owners, this can be a shock. It’s the kind of thing you’d expect – that a registry such as the AKC would be interested in breeding out genetic illnesses, and making sure a healthy constitution is maintained in a breed. And it explains why some breed clubs, such as those for the Australian kelpie dog breed, have chosen not to implement the requirements for AKC registration. Dogs not recognized by the American Kennel Club may not enter in the many AKC official dog shows. What is does mean, is that a breed’s health and working dog qualities are protected.
The American Kennel Club in effect wanted to restrict the natural genetic variability of breeds like the Australian kelpie. Dogs in American Kennel Club recognized breeds, and with an AKC issued pedigree, have been bred for show, according to fairly limiting characteristics. The net effect is that a lot of these dogs cannot do a lot of the things their ancestors once did, such as hunt. It has also meant a lot of genetic health issues, the consequence of too much inbreeding to keep the lines ‘pure’. Dogs are mated back to their parents and grandparents, simply because it creates dogs that help do well in dog shows. On their website, the University of Wisconsin write:
“First, the AKC defines quality in a dog primarily on the basis of appearance, paying scant heed to such other canine characteristics as health, temperament, and habits of work. Over the years this policy has led to destructive forms of inbreeding that have created dogs capable only of conforming to human standards of beauty. Many can no longer perform their traditional tasks–herding, tracking, hunting–while more than a few cannot live outside a human-controlled environment.” (Source)
Of course, this may not be the only reason why a breed isn’t recognized by the AKC. Many are thought of as a size variation of the breed they’re bred down from rather than a separate breed. This is the case with dogs like the small German spitz and the toy Manchester terrier.
In any case, unless you plan to show your dog, registration by the AKC is not as critical as buying a good quality dog from a breeder who breeds with the health of the dogs in mind, as well as to preserve the dog’s natural abilities. Breeders who breed mostly to achieve a certain look are more likely to follow breeding practices that create genetic defects. And it could result in dogs that have less than desirable temperaments as pets. Whilst there may be some instances where this is not true, in the long run, sustained inbreeding can only result in long term problems for a breed.
