Your AKC Registration Dollars at Work
Since Sean and I are thinking about opening a pet supply store, we’ve subscribed to all the trade publications we can find.
One of them, Pet Age, seems to carry advertising that leans pretty heavily towards pet stores that also sell puppies. There are frequently ads in Pet Age from the big mid western puppy sellers like Hunte Corporation., and Hunte Corp. has booths at all the trade shows this magazine and its parent company, Backer, promotes.
Imagine my surprise when I opened the June issue of Pet Age and found a FULL page ad from the American Kennel Club – an ad touting the fact that “nine out of ten puppy buyers prefer their puppies to have AKC papers”. The gist of the ad is that store owners should skip the ConCK and APRI registered puppies, and sell only ‘authentic’ AKC registered puppies in their pet stores. That AKC puppies somehow carry more consumer appeal, due to their conception as being a ‘superior’ product. An appeal, I should add, that’s based on the public’s perception of the AKC as being the arbiter of good breeding practices.
At a time when everyone is decrying the allegiance between AKC and Hunte, and AKC and Petland, and when people are insisting that AKC take a firmer stand against the sales of puppies in pet stores, what does AKC do? They spend registration dollars touting AKC registered puppies as great money making products to sell in pet stores. They get in bed with the very groups that they should be opposing, and they tarnish the very reputation that they claim their paperwork conveys. What’s truly ironic is that the ad touts the fact that the AKC is “Not for Profit”. I suppose that’s true, if you put aside how much money they pour into salaries, real estate and perks. I understand the theory that NGOs have to pay decent salaries to attract decently skilled people, but after a certain point it becomes a vicious cycle – you have to make more so that you can pay more to get people who can make more… (repeat endlessly). It’s similar to the statistics about the HSUS — they are, in effect, nothing more now than a vicious cycle of fund raising to make money to pay for more fund raising, with the barest minimum actually going to anything concrete.
The AKC, of course, excuses their behavior by claiming that all of these registrations are needed – are necessary! – for them to be able to continue to run dog shows. On their own website, they state that they’d have to raise fees to a ‘staggering’ $20 per entry to be able to make up for declining registrations. Is this true? Possibly. I believe, as do many others, that they could trim this number down through selling their prime New York City real estate and a few other belt tightening measures. And if that isn’t enough? Then raise entry fees. Ask your average exhibitor which they would prefer – higher entry fees, and an AKC that refuses to allow puppies sold through pet stores to be AKC registered, or the current artificially subsidized entry fees. I’m pretty sure I know how that vote would turn out.
Every single time AKC does something like this, it makes it harder and harder for me to believe their line about being the ‘purebred’s champion’, and to believe their PR about how they’re all about sportsmanship and breed preservation. Clearly, the only thing that matters any more to the AKC is making more and more bucks off of registrations, no matter where those registered puppies end up being sold. With this as their mantra, someone tell me – what REALLY is the difference any more between AKC and America’s Pet Registry or any other registry for that matter?
When you start touting your services to the very people your organization is supposed to oppose, haven’t you lost the entire “We’re better than those other guys” moral high ground?
The Joys of Being a Dog Breeder
First off, I’m bone tired, so if this post makes little to no sense try to bear with me..
Delilah finally got a wee bit of colostrum at about 2 am last night. The operative term here is ‘little’ – the most minuscule droplets I’ve ever seen out of a bitch. Not nearly enough to nourish the pups, but at least they did get a little bit from her, which is important for their immune systems.
Since I happen to have another nursing bitch in the house, I’ve so far avoided having to bottle feed the pups to help them out. I’m not sure, however, that bottle feeding wouldn’t possibly be easier. Here’s our current routine:
Get pups, put on the bed. Grab Delilah, put on bed next to pups, wrestle her onto her side (I’m not kidding about this, either – you have to physically wrestle her down onto her side, then pin her there so she can’t bolt for the door).
Put pups on nipples and let them at least try to nurse, as their suckling will help Delilah’s milk to come down. There’s a fine line here, however, because if they try to nurse too hard, for too long, they’ll exhaust themselves and give up. So, as soon as they start to get restless, I remove them, pack them in a basket, and haul them down to Bunny’s room.
Once there, I grab whichever one of Bun’s pups is awake, then grab Bunny, and put them both on the bed. Once the Bunny pup is nursing, I sneak Delilah’s pups in as well. Bunny isn’t thrilled about this arrangement, but she’s being very tolerant. So long as one of her own pups is nursing, she’ll lie still long enough for Delilah’s pups to top up.
I then wipe bottoms, pack them back into their basket, put Bunny and her puppy back into the whelping box, and take Delilah’s pups back up to Delilah’s room.
Repeat every two hours. Whee, dog breeding sure is fun.
First photos of Delilah’s pups (who we’ve been referring to as the Deedle Bops, which should be proof enough of how sleep deprived both Sean and I are) —
http://www.flickr.com/photos/frenchbulldogs/sets/72157619967869982/
Twelve day photos of Bunny’s pups, who are all FAT as can be and finally have open eyes. They are the cutest, chubbiest little monkeys you can imagine, and it’s impossible to see them and not want to pick them up and blow raspberries on their tummies.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/frenchbulldogs/sets/72157619883408409/
Delilah Babies Make Their Debut
Delilah went into labor underneath my desk this afternoon – thankfully, our vet’s office is right around the corner from my office. She delivered four lovely babies (yes, just four – and guess what we discovered? Most of that weight wasn’t puppy weight, it was “My mom and dad have been feeding me four meals a day plus snacks” weight). Three girls – two stripey brindles with black masks and one perfectly marked brindle pied, and one boy who is marked JUST like Dexter, right down to that mark on the back of his neck that Barb calls the “devil mark”. Uh oh…
Delilah is doing well, but she has NO MILK. I don’t mean ‘she doesn’t have much milk’, I mean she has NONE. We’ve given her multiple doses of oxy, some drug that encourages smooth muscle contractions, warm compresses, accupuncture – nada. Thankfully, Bunny has been willing to nurse the kids, although so far she won’t clean them. Delilah wants nothing to do with them – I believe I heard her muttering “hire me a freakin’ nanny” as I was shuttling them out of her room and back downstairs to Bunny. Hopefully her hormones will kick in and stimulate her milk production. If not, well, I suppose I can muddle by for a week and wean the Bun pups early.
No photos right now – I’m simply exhausted, and will have to put them alternately on Bunny and then Delilah every two hours for the forseeable future. Whee.