AWDF at the Cross Roads
Jim Engel, September 2001As the American Working Dog Federation was founded in the late 1980's, it was the shared expectation that it would take the working dog movement in America to the next level, become the foundation on which a true American working dog culture could be built. Although the founders were Schutzhund oriented, the door was left open for participation by Ring and Police trial oriented organizations. Strong principles of sportsmanship and service to the working dog ideal permeated the founding documents. The movement, begun by Schutzhund USA, of limiting commercialism among judges held out the promise of stamping out the corrupt Schutzhund judge, a primary threat to the emerging working culture in the early days.
As founding secretary of the AWDF, it was my expectation that it would serve as a bulwark, establish and maintain standards of performance, sportsmanship and integrity in the breeding programs for our protective heritage breeds. In particular, it was my expectation that the working title, be it Schutzhund, Ring or KNPV, would be the foundation of the movement, the key to the conformation ring and the ultimate goal as the breeding criteria.
Now we see these ideals compromised, lowered standards being surreptitiously slipped into place, in order to pander to those unwilling to put in the effort necessary for excellence and to appease European bureaucrats who are not, fundamentally, in any way part of the protection dog heritage and movement. In doing this, those responsible are jeopardizing the credibility of the AWDF and the future of working dog in America.
Paul Meloy, then president of Schutzhund USA, the German Shepherd breed club in America, was primarily driven by two objectives. First, he saw the need for a formal FCI affiliation in order to advance USA as a member of the international family of German Shepherd national clubs. Second, he needed a way to ease the other breeds out of USA without creating animosity. These were legitimate goals, the fruit of basically wise policy.
But even in the beginning there were flies in the ointment. In the first place, the AKC has de facto and formal arrangements with the FCI that put in effect the mechanics for registering dogs permanently moving from one side to the other and to allow for such things as limited recognition of judges across international boundaries. The flip side of the coin is the mutual understanding that neither side will attempt to interfere in the internal affairs of the other. The moment that FCI begins to make serious steps to recognize an FCI entity in America the AKC is going to go, quietly at first but then as openly as necessary, and tell the Europeans to back off or else they will cease to recognize FCI pedigrees. This of course hits the commercial elements in Europe, including the big time German Shepherd marketers, where it hurts the most, in the pocket book.
Perhaps the greatest hypocrisy in all of this is on the part of the SV, the Shepherd club in Germany. They have built their breed on the credo of von Stepinetiz and the other founders, the primary principle being that a dog must succeed in a Schutzhund trial in order to be a German Shepherd, that is to be bred and thus continue the race. It is true that there has been deviation from the ideal, that Schutzhund trial results have on occasion been falsified and helpers have been selected with the understanding that they would go easy on important t show dogs, which usually meant the show dogs of high club officers and their cronies. But there is corruption everywhere, and the mark of a vital and successful system, such as the SV and our own American national government, is that it can survive and prosper in spite of occasional incompetent and corrupt leadership.
Since sometime before the Second World War the SV had a low level relationship with the German Shepherd Dog Club of America, the national member club of the AKC for the Shepherd. The fact that the GSDCA was busily inventing an American Shepherd, a large, long, low slung lop eared monstrosity without a shadow of true Shepherd character, was more or less irrelevant since nothing of importance was at stake on either side. With the emergence of the Schutzhund movement in the seventies and eighties, there arose in America a set of people devoted to the real German Shepherd working dog. Originally there was little concern for structure, and even though USA was formally a Shepherd organization little emphasis was placed on its breed orientation. �The decision to use a name without the phrase "German Shepherd" was an unwise strategy to play both ends against the middle, to gain wider all breed support in the beginning and yet leave the exclusion of a significant portion of the original enthusiasts as an inevitable future development.
If the SV was sincere in their belief in the principles of von Stepinetiz, they would have long ago severed relations with the GSDCA because they were in fact constructing another deviant breed and recognized and supported Schutzhund USA because they are the only organization in America devoted to the German Shepherd of the founders. But the SV vacillated, gave USA some sort of second class membership without a vote in the WUSV (World Union of Shepherd Clubs) and maintained their relationship with GSDCA as the primary American entity. GSDCA is clearly the classic dog in the manger, for their only real interest in an affiliation with the SV is to prevent the emergence and success of USA as a truly successful over all American German Shepherd entity.
It is difficult to know the fundamental motivations of the SV leadership in playing these games with the Americans. Certainly there is some desire not to rock the AKC boat, and perhaps even some loyalty to GSDCA as a long time affiliate. But the net result is that they have put USA in the position of seeking FCI affiliation in order to hold a place in the world canine community that would enable them to take part in Shepherd affairs.
But as long as the AKC is in place, no American organization will ever have meaningful membership in the FCI on an equal basis with the other member nations. For this reason the thrust of AWDF policy has been as impossible of success as Don Quixote actually knocking down an windmill. ( And if they did succeed, would they really have more than a pile of broken bricks and planks and an angry owner ?)
My own belief is that elements of the SV leadership desire to keep the Americans divided so as to maintain their own sense of importance and power and to maintain the profitable export business. For this reason, their primary tactic seems to be to always support the weaker faction so as to make the American strife permanent. In view of the Green Party pressure in Germany, and the increasing tendency of working dog people world wide to look to Belgium or Czechoslovakia for strong working stock, their place at the top is in potential jeopardy. Because of their faithfulness to the principles of von Stepinetiz, the German Shepherd is the most successful and over all the best working dog in the world. But this position at the pinnacle is not theirs by right, it is a position which must be merited by each generation in turn. The division of the Shepherd in Germany into working dogs and show dogs, spreading like cancer into USA, threatens the integrity of even this most noble breed.
Thus the primary reason that USA is seeking FCI affiliation is that the SV has set this as an artificial obstacle to keep Americans in their secondary place in the world, happily sending money to Germany and sucking up to the German bureaucrats. The primary beneficiaries of this are the commercial elements in both Germany and America.
And what about the FCI ? Is FCI membership a practical and worthwhile goal, the key to a full scale role in working dog affairs? Many have long believed so, and the lure of European competition as a symbol of maturity and status is well established. But what purpose is truly served by sending dogs titled in Europe and then sold to Americans back to Europe to compete? Is not buying a titled dog to prove that you are a dog trainer like marrying a pregnant woman to prove that you are a man ? Are we gaining respect, or are they laughing at how easy we are to manipulate and control ? Are they interested in seeing America grow into a nation with a vital working dog culture, or are we in this arena still the colonies under the thumb of the mother country, worthy only to send over money and humble bureaucrats to pay homage?
The fundamental fact is that the FCI is not a working dog entity at all. It is a heavily political all breed organization, and under attack by the Green Parties, and the little old ladies with their lap dog breeds, will under pressure sell out the working breeds, just as they have sold out the involved breeds on the docking and cropping issue. We hear of efforts to eliminate the courage test in the IPO and Schutzhund trial, to have the dogs merely run out and bark at a respectful distance, a performance which would automatically fail any dog today. We have seen the lowering of the passing score in protection to 70 points, and after mild resistance we have acquiesced.
Because of it's very success, because of the better dogs and training it has produced, the time has come to significantly enhance the Schutzhund trial. We need to institute a call off in the protection routine and make the obedience more practical and more integrated with the protection routine. The determining points in a championship should not be a straight sit but rather a performance that demonstrates more fundamental qualities of initiative and intelligence.
Rather than being a test of tracking, obedience and protection, the trend has been to emphasize tracking obedience, trick obedience and protection obedience. This has favored the servile, merely confident dog over the strong, hard dog with the initiative to deal with the unexpected. Quite frankly we need to adapt some elements of the KNPV and Belgian Ring into the IPO and Schutzhund trials.
Under the FCI, all of the second echelon breeds, those other than the Malinois and Shepherd, have declined as working breeds, increasingly under the control of the show breeders and the pet and show dog oriented national entities, such as the Raad van Beheer in the Netherlands.
The German Shepherd and Malinois, prosperous as they are today, are also at risk. The European green movement, behind the bans on cropping and docking, is truly at root opposed to the very concept of the dog as a working partner to man, and their success so far will only whet their appetite for more, for the ultimate elimination of the working dog from European society.
Many who train the German Shepherd are apolitical, take the attitude that they just want to train their dogs, confident that the issues and conflicts of canine politics are irrelevant to them. They are wrong. Increasingly, even in the German Shepherd world, political control is falling into the hands of those who would put conformation on an equal plane with the working heritage. The consequence will be the emasculation of even such a noble and well established breed as the German Shepherd. Working standards will come to be lowered, bypassed and ignored. The show winners, at the end of their short cut route to the breed ring win, will be the wellspring of the next generation and the working lines will gradually be pushed to the side and eventually perish.
The ideal situation would be for the SV to withdraw from the FCI and establish a world wide federation of true working dog organizations, based on the working trial as the foundation of every protective heritage working breed. Until this comes to pass, we in America need to focus more on putting our own house in order, building our national training and testing programs, and much less on being humble, useful and rich enough to merit a paternalistic pat on the head from Europeans who, at root, are not really hard core working dog people at all.
The emphasis on FCI acceptance by the AWDF is increasingly leading the organization away from its fundamental purposes. We are told that FCI officers have hinted that in order to be more acceptable the AWDF should find a way to take the word "working" out of the name, that as a working dog organization we are too limited in scope to be acceptable. From their point of view, there is logic in this, but in what way will the working dog enthusiasts in America be better off under the thumb of European pet dog people, increasingly weak advocates on the issues of docking and cropping as well as police style work, than the AKC?
The idea of FCI membership has always been a fantasy. In the beginning I considered it more or less harmless, a secondary issue that did not do any real harm in spite of it's futility. Just as children believing in Santa Claus is a harmless diversion, adults in North America believing that anything of importance was to be had by seeking FCI affiliation seemed to be a harmless if childish fantasy. But this has turned out to be anything but harmless, for over the past ten years we have seen the erosion of the commitment to the working dog ideal in a never ending campaign to curry favor with the all breed FCI. Where will it end? Do we really want to wind up as second class members in an American FCI organization run by the show and pet breeders, essentially still under the thumb of the little old ladies?
Another threat to AWDF integrity is that a number of the member clubs are even today under the control of the show and pet breeders, to the exclusion of those actually working the dogs.
The prime example is the Malinois. The AWDF member Malinois club is the United Belgian Shepherd Dog Association. This club is also a member of the United Kennel Club and thus committed to their registration system and under the control of the pet and show breeders. (Clearly this is an impediment to eventual FCI membership.) Although at one time this club conducted a Schutzhund championship, this ceased several years ago and the working Malinois people have gone on to found the American Working Malinois Club, characterized as "the only working club representing the Malinois"
This working club has been told that they have a "guest" membership in the AWDF, but there is nothing in the constitution , available on the AWDF web site for all to see, which makes this possible. The constitution quite clearly states that only one club per breed can hold membership. "Guest membership" is evidently a fairy tail made up on the spur of the moment to get past an inconvenient situation.
Is the AWDF to be taken over and run by and for the show people ? In November they will hold a conformation show in St. Louis, a primary reason for which is the desire to run "European Style" shows to be more acceptable to the FCI. But what does this mean in the context of the AWDF as a working dog association?
According to their web site, there will be classes for Puppies, Young/Untitled Dogs and Working Dogs. So far so good. I am a strong believer that the structure and appearance of a dog is an important part of the culture and heritage. Police and military officers wear uniforms to create a handsome appearance and bearing as part of the over all culture. It is very desirable that the individual working breeds be represented by uniform appearance and a structure well adapted to their work. Conformation shows where those dogs holding a working title are evaluated for structure in the interest of breeding selection is a fundamentally good thing. In practice, it quite often becomes the end in itself and thus the source of infinite evil and the emasculation of so many of our working breeds.
There is a dirty little deal here. Go to the AWDF web site and you will find no definition of the class requirements. Since this is to be a "European Style" show one would think that the working class would be open only to dogs holding an IPO, Schutzhund, Ring or KNPV title. There is a definite effort being made to give this impression.
But the fact is that the individual breed clubs are free to set their own standards, and the Bouvier Club, NAWBA, is in fact allowing dogs with only their own Mickey Mouse temperament test to be eligible for the AWDF working class. This is of course absurd and makes this whole beauty show a crude and pathetic farce. This is not "European Style" at all for in Europe the dogs in the working class always have a legitimate working title.
How can this be ? Will the NAWBA next be allowed to determine that a Bouvier only needs forty points in tracking to get a Schutzhund title? Are there to be no standards? Is the AWDF to stand for nothing except accommodation and the incessant lowering of standards?
For the AWDF to hold a conformation event open to senior dogs without a working title is a betrayal of everything we have always believed in. We hold the AKC in contempt because they have working groups and herding groups with dogs totally unfit for their work. Now our working dog organization is doing the same thing.
Every person who enters a dog or makes a contribution is an accomplice in this atrocity, and directly contributes to the debasement of our working breeds.
I am of course ashamed and embarrassed that NAWBA, of which I am no longer a member, is holding the Bouvier up to ridicule by lowering standards rather than struggling to improve character. But there is more at stake here, for this is setting the precedent of ever lowering of standards.
There is no doubt that the working Malinois people will not be taken in by this phony beauty show. But they have no representation in the AWDF, and the show breeders of the United Belgian Shepherd Dog Association are going to love the NAWBA temperament test. They may not come this year, but by next year they might well have their own version of the temperament test and thus be able to send their dogs to the AWDF beauty show without the effort of training. (After all, the temperament test was invented by Belgian and French Bouvier show breeders, and for the Malinois, being a Belgian breed, it will be put forth as natural to "follow the lead of the homelands.")
It will be the same old story. The Malinois show breeders will tell potential clients that they should buy pups out of their AWDF beauty show winners. When asked about the lack of working titles in the background, they will be told "that's OK, these dogs have passed the AWDF temperament test in order to win their championships in the working class. Would the American 'Working' Dog Federation let dogs without character compete? Don't buy one of the dogs of questionable background from the low class Malinois trainers, buy one out of our working certified AWDF show winning lines and have the best of both worlds."
Absurd? Of course. Nobody with any experience will be taken in. But the novice very often will, and many potential working dog contributors will be lost to this breed and to the movement as a whole.
And once the Belgian Shepherd show breeders discover the wonders of the temperament test, they will hang on to the AWDF seat tenaciously, for they will think they have discovered the goose that lays golden eggs. The working Malinois people will be permanently disenfranchised. Ultimately, working people will found their own organizations, outside the auspices of the AWDF. That will be the beginning of the end.
The time has come for the American Working Dog Federation to become just that, an organization devoted to building a viable working dog culture in America. To that end, we need to address our real problems, the building of infrastructure, local clubs and training organizations, that can allow working and middle class Americans to participate in and contribute to the process rather than running the organization for the benefit of the dog brokers, the professional trainers and their clients economically able to purchase and campaign already trained European dogs and those who want to feel important by being our designated supplicants to the European bureaucrats.
In America at this moment, we are at the crossroads and the focus is on the AWDF leadership. Will they take that fateful first step to oblivion, and allow untitled dogs to walk into the show ring on an equal footing with the true working dogs, and thus betray the heritage?
Jim Engel, September 2001