GSDCA Lawsuit - Letter of Clarification from the AKC - Page 11

Hired Dog,

How is $10 by each club member at a local trial going to affect that trial? Most clubs have between 10-15 members.

It won't and club members already put up much more than that when they host a trial.

If you are talking about national events here, there are, for sake of argument about 3500 members in UScA. That works out to $35,000 if you can get a bylaw passed to require everyone to pay it. Not very much in prize money to attract a whole bunch of other people than what are already competing. That is only one national event. There are three major events each year. Nationals, Working Dog Championship, and UScA Sieger Show. Now you are asking for $30 additional from each member. There are many, many people that already complain about the membership fees as they are. Most of the people in these organizations know they will never compete at a national level or do not want to. Asking them for more money will be met with resistance.

As for the enitire IPO/Sch world, we are already paying the WUSV to be a member and that helps pay for the WUSV Championship. That money, just like the money to host national events here, already comes from members pockets in the form of yearly membership dues.

Prize money would have to come from outside the organization from big sponsors for that to make enough of a difference. I don't think Formula 1 or NASCAR is relying on its drivers to come up with prize money to attract more people to racing.

In that case sir, if you cant get people to contribute as you say and seeing how the sport does not attract a lot of attention, maybe because biting offends people, the sponsors wont be there and you do all you can to keep it going as long as you can, good luck to you my friend.

You pretty much nailed it!

IPO/SchH wasn´t created for spectators, and it wasn´t created to make money - it was created to compare the working abilities of working dogs. A tool for breeders, helpful for bonding, and ( if done well ) fun for the dogs.

The top competitors in IPO already make a lot of money by selling, training, breeding, im/exporting dogs, giving seminars, running dog schools, selling dvds, and on and on.
Good working dogs are sold for tremendous amounts of money, well known males are used as studs. These guys are not working for prize money - a title is the best advertisement for their business, nothing else.
Looking at the top, more than enough money is made, be it sport or show.

With a " prize money " the buying and selling of dogs will become worse, money against morality, not my cup of coffee. A dog is no tennis racket.

I believe the original testing for Schutzhund was pass fail in Germany.  The competition scoring and Shutzhund I, II, III was added because men wanted to see who had the biggest Johnson and their dogs looked better and performed better than their Johnsons when tested in the daylight???  Eventually the competition and the Johnson testing warped the entire Schutzhund concept into the bastardization we have today.  A competition and not a breed test is what IPO has become and as any GSD breeder in Germany can tell you "Not all great dogs are champions and not all champions are great dogs".  The real hoot in all of this is that the female GSD's do all of the heavy lifting in producing great GSD puppies and they get very little testing and in many cases get promoted to "breeding quality" so that a BSP or BSZS winner will have something to mate with.  There have been plenty of female GSD given a Sch I or IPO I based on the fact they were going into the breeding population and would likely never see an IPO judge again.  It's an inside joke that IPO promotes the most important part of GSD breeding ( the females ) with looser standards and a wink or a nod when they are the most important part.  But since the females don't have a Johnson the fat guy with the clip board values her contribution less.  Great dogs, great bloodlines and great kennels are built on the backs of the GSD females and the male GSD is just a sperm donor yet the IPO competition system is so screwed up it seldom recognizes the great females.  Even better the SV just "relaxed" it's breed standard for over size males to allow more of them as within standard as if there was a shortage of over size male GSD in the world.

@OGBS, you're right I dont know much about chicagoland, but its not the first place that comes to my mind for bare backed water activities such as surfing, with near year round warm climate. Nor would I want to put a big, expensive, portable, plastic pool out in the elements through the winters up there.  Dock diving clubs tend to hug the coastlines and I am sure there are many logical reason why they do so.

Now, since you missed my point again. I wasnt taking about the difficulty of dock diving. I was pointing out the growth success it has had in a short period of time.  Dock diving is sponsored and televised (Wahl hair clippers sponsors a team!). Club are risking the investment of buying giant, expensive, portable, plastic pools. The akc accepted it in a much shorter time frame than they did with IPO and its popular enough for the UKC to copy it.

If you actually think about it, people like yourself participating in "our sport" could learn quite a bit about how to GROW an oganization and sport from this dock diving example. To be blunt, they are doing it right and you are doing it wrong.

 Bravo, Susie!!  You took the words right out of my mouth.   Add "prize money" to the mix and not only will the buying and selling of dogs become worse, so will cheating and dirty tricks.  Dogs have  been "tampered with " even poisoned at some big events ( NOT a lot of such conduct, thankfully, but any is unacceptable, IMO).   That's when money is not at issue.    I see no reason to provide even more tangible incentive to the nefarious among us.

these threads make up for the boredom in watching a trial.

Since my last comment has gotten the ol' thumbs down, let me give some additional effective steps that could be taken, since "growth" appears to be a dirty word here. Perhaps clubs focused on "our sport" need to increase recruiting efforts focused on folks in law enforcement, since you don't want to make any adjustments to get seasoned AKC participants involved. Maybe this kind of person is the best fit for you, since eveyone else whom wouldn't balk at the participation costs doesn't seem worthy of mention.

From my humble perspective the scariest thing that could possibly plague the sport is prize money. Money is not the route of all evil but the quest for money is. If competitors enter events to pad their purses devious things will very quickly begin to happen. Greed, avarice and dishonesty are cruel partners for anything facetiously claiming to be a sport.  When money becomes the reward then the activity ceases to be a sport and immediately becomes a profession and invariably dishonesty will kick in at the first sunrise.

I have always believed that the downfall of our sport from its inception has been the local CLUBS many of which are nothing more than a business in disguise. Their leaders claim to be a CLUB, but in reality they are nothing more than a creation hell bent on being a revenue source for the CLUB'S owner(s). Please notice, I said owner(s) and didn't say officers. Officers have undeniable fiduciary responsibilities to their members while owners only have responsibilities only to their wallets.  Too many, if not most local CLUBS are clearly nothing more than  cover-up names for a business with the business owner being the president or more appropriately the dictator. The activities of that organization have no other purpose than  to pad the CLUB owner's wallet. My perception of a CLUB is an organization created to benefit each and every member equally with none assigned a favored position. Now,  you tell me how many DOG CLUBS do you know of who actually can claim to do that.  It is my opinion that the activities of all CLUBS should have the purpose to provide benefits equally to each and every member. Furthermore, it is my contention that no revenue or funds created or received by said CLUB should inure or go to the benefit of any officer, director or member.  When CLUBS are created to pad the pockets of some individual they then cease to be of any value to the sport they piously claim to promote.

Please understand, I have no problem with CLUBS reimbursing the officers or members for actually out of pocket expenditures spent to benefit the club. However if an organization wants to call itself a CLUB then its officers, directors, training assistants etc., should not receive compensation for their efforts to support or promote the activities of that organization.  If an organization exists to generate revenue to benefit certain individuals then quit hiding behind the bald-faced lie and call it what it is. It is a business hoping to profit off those who use its services. 

If Billy Bob Smith wants to startup a training, dog brokering, dog breeding, counseling business let him call it Billy Bob's Dog Stuff Incorporated and please don't let him disguise it as Billy Bob' Schutzhund Club. Using the term Club gives it a certain level of perceived integrity that may not exist.