AWDF in Crisis:
The Way Forward
As a consequence of the expulsion of USCA from the AWDF American working dog affairs are in turmoil, conflict and confusion, and the ultimate extent of the damage has yet to emerge. This has historical roots in structural defects, festering issues going back thirty years, and a sequence of ill considered, escalating rash maneuvers on the part of all parties. There is plenty of blame to go around, but that merely states the obvious, the question is what now? Glossary
No nation or organization is founded in perfection; time and circumstance bring change and unforeseeable challenge. The United States emerged as a slave holding nation with only property owning white males entitled to participate in governance, resulting in a tragic civil war two generations later. The 1989 AWDF foundation meeting in St. Louis and the subsequent meetings at which the bylaws and operational rules and policies evolved resulted in an effective association which served well at the time, but times have changed and the current impasse is in many ways a consequence of this. The foundation problem of the United States was slavery, and the foundation problem of the AWDF was balancing rights, privileges and obligations among one very large and predominant member, USCA, and the other clubs which are much smaller and more dependent. These disparities are at the crux of today's conflicts; we have not handled change well.
A decade earlier, when USCA was founded, Schutzhund was primarily a German national venue with a relatively small foot print elsewhere. Belgium, Holland and France had a primarily bite suit rather than bite sleeve oriented working culture, that is their predominant national venues were a variant of Ring Sport or KNPV. But Americans were by and large oblivious to all of this, in our minds police dogs were German Shepherds or perhaps Dobermans, the Rottweiler at the time being in a very early stage of its popularity boom. The Malinois or for that matter any other non-German breed was virtually unknown as a police or military dog in America and the other Ring Sport like venues were equally obscure and foreign.
In our perception Germany was the center of the working dog universe and their national German Shepherd club, the SV, founded in 1900, was the rock upon which von Stephanitz had built the police style working dog heritage. We were no more capable of doubting or ignoring guidance than Catholics were capable of questioning the authority of the Pope. That the Belgians were first on the street with police patrol dogs, as acknowledged by von Stephanitz, was washed away by the German atrocity of 1914, which left Belgian canine affairs in a backwater for most of a century.
In the beginning it did not seem especially onerous that in order to secure the services of SV judges we agreed to some fine print and fell into their carefully crafted web. In that era the division between show and work lines was not as obvious or ominous has it has since become, and the credibility of the SV seemed unimpeachable. Little did we know that just as the Catholic church was concealing and condoning widespread sexual abuse the SV was subverting the principle of von Stephanitz, that form must follow function, and abandoning the commitment to police service and even then evolving the pathetic monstrosities that are the SV show lines of today.
At the foundation of AWDF in 1989 USCA was a vigorous ten years old and prospering, predominant in membership and holding a significant majority of American trials. Ten years earlier at the advent of USCA in the late 1970s previous entities such as an earlier DVG presence, some clubs affiliated with GSDCA (German Shepherd Dog Club of America) and NASA, an early attempt at an American solution had or shortly would die out, rendering USCA a truly unified national Schutzhund venue.
The future seemed bright, but this was very short lived, for in 1980 or slightly earlier there was an enormous quarrel within USCA resulting in the expulsion of a number of prominent members and others leaving on their own, creating bad blood remnants of which persist to this day. This was severely destabilizing with ongoing residual consequences, which illustrates perfectly the need for careful deliberation and rational decision making as we deal with our current crisis.
The excluded outsiders, with well-known names such as Phil Hoelcher and Tom Rose, went on to establish a new incarnation of DVG America, which was for many years predominate in Florida and the St. Louis area and to some extent California, and also gradually built up a national network of clubs and a fairly substantial presence in Canada. There were at the time active Rottweiler and Bouvier des Flanders working dog associations, and these, together with USCA and the AKC Doberman club represented by Ray Carlisle, became the founding AWDF members.
As an aside, Northern Illinois Schutzhund Club, where we were introduced to the sport, had been founded as a DVG club about 1970 but transitioned over to USCA at about the time we became involved. In that era USCA presented a much more sport oriented and all-breed persona and SV domination was much less onerous and pervasive. This club, with Betty Sagen still active, is now again a DVG club, the only one I know of that was DVG in the early days and also in the new incarnation today, completing a circle. Betty is certainly a candidate for the longest active participant in our sport, and is universally respected, especially for her ever present willingness to extend a helping hand to the beginner.
Although DVG America was not present at the AWDF foundation meetings there were serious discussions in St. Louis shortly thereafter, which however remained unconsummated. Although there was reluctance concerning inclusion of an entity with first allegiance to Germany, the negotiations actually broke down over the issue of AWDF regulations concerning commercial activity of judges, which I had written patterned very closely on existing USCA policy, which was quite strict. Essentially there were a number of German DVG judges residing in America running fairly extensive commercial training and importing operations who were unwilling to accept restrictions and who had enough influence to veto the affiliation. My assumption was that this decision was made in Germany by then president Christa Bremmer, who was actively micro managing American DVG affairs, but I have no specific documentation. This exclusion went on for many years, and should have remained in place.
Over the years USCA was vastly predominant in terms of clubs, trials and membership but in the early days retained an essentially working dog character, not yet coerced by the SV into providing marketing services for the show lines. Roughly a third of the membership trained breeds other than the German Shepherd, and many of these trainers were also members of breed specific working clubs such as those for the Rottweiler or the Bouvier, which I was involved in. The Doberman working advocates were attempting to work within the national AKC breed club, but this proved untenable and eventually, subsequent to the AWDF foundation, they formed their own working organization.
From the beginning AWDF governance was on the basis of one vote per club, with no mechanism for proportional representation, no formal recognition of the reality of the vast size disparity. In retrospect this was a serious defect. Although this worked remarkably well for a few years, essentially because the initial leadership remained in place and there were no especially urgent divisive issues, abuse and injustice perpetrated by those representing a very small segment of the community was always a possibility. This was a ticking time bomb, which has now gone off.
By custom rather than law the USCA presidents, beginning with Paul Meloy, also for many years served as AWDF president. Much later, after I had become uninvolved, Paul became estranged from the USCA and the final chapters were ugly; it would seem that power does indeed tend to corrupt. In my view this was a tragedy, for in the early years he had been an able leader whose foresight and wisdom contributed substantially and he was in many ways responsible for the strength and vigor of USCA, which despite its conflicts and problems has been enormously successful. I regarded Paul as a friend and was deeply saddened as the final chapters played out.
Until relatively recently USCA provided the bulk of the funding, which would eventually become a serious issue and lead to realignments seriously destabilizing the federation. Some of the breed clubs were small and fragile, in some instances devolving into empty shells running no trials and not even conducting an annual championship, yet retaining a seat at the table and the vote. Historically most of the breed club championship trials were under USCA auspices in an era when USCA was still fundamentally a training organization and many if not most of these other breed championship competitors were also USCA members and held USCA score books.
Over time the SV hijacked USCA and recast it as SV Show Dog Distribution America, GmbH. This enforced promotion of the degenerate German show lines introduced an enormous amount of administrative overhead and cost for services such as registration systems, medical registries, conformation shows and Koer classification, all of the money sucking, credibility destroying accouterments of the dog show world. This greatly expanded the St. Louis bureaucracy and drove ongoing operational cost incessantly upward.
The funding for all of this was imposed on the hapless working trainers; eventually USCA annual membership fees were more than doubled to $100, which was essentially a means of confiscating money from the dog sport trainers and diverting it to support the ongoing SV show dog racket.
As the smaller AWDF breed entities, such as the Malinois club, implemented their individual score book programs even those whose primary trial venue was USCA tended to gravitate to these books, since AWDF agreements provide for universal recognition of all score books under their umbrella. This was at least in part a matter of side stepping the onerous $100 USCA annual membership fee and making enforced indirect contributions to the SV show dog sales promotion scheme.
On the surface the current crisis arose as a consequence of disputes concerning the AWDF FCI qualification trial, and the proximate cause of the USCA imposed $100 surcharge was portrayed as nothing more than an escalation of that dispute. But the underlying reality of the surcharge is USCA's ever expanding need to feed their SV cancer using funds extracted by taxation of the rank and file of working trainers; in the long term they simply could not afford the diversion of funds as trainers switched to more reasonably priced means of obtaining a score book.
Today there is much hubris in the air. Some elements within USCA seem to have the illusion that they really are much too big and important to fail, that their numbers, history and predominance, and their WUSV connection, render them unassailable, that this too shall pass. Perhaps they should reflect on the fate of IBM, General Motors and Lehman Brothers, all apparently unassailable, yet two of the three went bankrupt and IBM was reduced to a second tier existence. They also need to realize that their subservient relationship with the SV is eroding their credibility, viability and honor and find the courage to extract themselves from this onerous relationship.
This delusional AWDF regime has somehow conjured up the fantasy that they wield real power, are the delegated agent of the FCI, have the ability to make or break lesser clubs, to grant or withdraw recognition of titles. But reality is that the FCI has no role, legitimate or otherwise, in American affairs and AWDF illusions of license, power or even relevance are little more than wishful thinking. Historically the AWDF has never had more than a contingent opportunity to attend meetings as observers and courtesy entries to certain international trials. Their display of the FCI logo on their web site is misleading to say the very least and borders on outright fraud. None of this can or will change unless the AKC somehow implodes, which strangely enough does not seem quite as implausible as it once did; but this is certainly not imminent. As this fiasco has unfolded the AWDF leadership has proven to be akin to children playing with matches; the flames are bright and fun, but they had no idea at all of the consequences and no plan for going forward in a constructive manner, as indicated by their ensuing silence.
While these important people posture, pose and spar over mundane issues relating to elite privilege the rank and file of club level amateur trainers see only confusion, lack of meaningful support and escalating cost primarily to the benefit of the elite. Potential participants and struggling novices, especially younger people, see only the ugly underbelly of confusion, arrogance and greed. The dogs themselves are becoming little more than sports equipment, a means to the ends of vainglory, aggrandizement and money.
The underlying cause of this hubris, this sense of entitlement, is loss of focus on the ground level mission, the support of amateur trainers and small scale breeders in the local clubs. These quarrels revolve around Euro team qualification, elite advantage, favors for and from friends in high places, travel money for the professionals and insiders. The losers are the struggling amateur trainers who suddenly find that there is to be a hundred dollar surcharge to enter the most convenient local trial, the one they began training for, because their score book has suddenly been revealed as being of the wrong color.
This ongoing series of reckless actions and angry knee jerk reactions has incessantly escalated, one thing leading to an even more absurd response. There has been virtually no evidence of mature reflection, no regard for likely long term consequences, which are potentially dire, enormously harmful to the sport and the American working dog movement. The rank and file members can hardly help but find these esoteric quarrels and arbitrarily changing regulations confusing, discouraging and disillusioning. How can this not project a terrible public persona and image?
The proximate issue has been the FCI IPO championship qualification trial, with various factions of professionals and elite amateurs jockeying for advantage and favors for friends. But the reality is that as things now stand there is no entity in America worthy of any sort of an FCI relationship. USCA is breed specific, and the blow back from the dispute between the WUSV and the FCI would surely render this an even more tenuous relationship.
On the other hand an AWDF excluding and hostile to most of the active German Shepherd trainers and indeed consisting of a small minority of the overall training community in terms of active trainers, functioning clubs and yearly trials is patently absurd as an international agent of the American community.
The bizarre reality is that as things now stand the AWDF is a predominantly German organization with a substantial majority of the individual members and local training clubs, through their DVG affiliation, under ultimate German rather than American control and authority. With 800 members and forty odd illicit German trials on American soil DVG America overshadows the breed clubs with their paltry half dozen. How can AWDF truly represent American interests with so many of the individual members and local clubs having a more fundamental and binding loyalty to their German national association?
The issues directly precipitating the current crisis revolved around the conduct of the AWDF qualification trial for the FCI IPO world championship. As things now stand after the expulsion of USCA and in light of announced AWDF policy on title acceptance a substantial majority of American trainers, those focused on USCA trials, would not be eligible for future qualification trials. The road to European FCI championship competition will thus be only through DVG, that is German, trials and the half dozen or so conducted by the breed clubs. Words such as bizarre and absurd hardly seem adequate to characterize this situation.
From the point of view of the FCI the rational and logical response to all of this would be to wash their hands of the whole mess, tell the Americans to get their house in order and then at some future time, with order restored, apply for a renewed relationship. If they do not, we should take it upon ourselves to put our house in order before resuming any sort of European relationship.
In seeking a way foreword there are a number of realities that need to be understood and accommodated:
- First and foremost is incessant German manipulation and interference in both DVG and USCA; America will be subservient and second rate until we take charge of our own destiny, cease being governed by European priorities and advantage rather that by and for Americans.
- Secondly the existing AWDF structure has proven to be unworkable; we seem to be unable to create a long term stable and equitable structure encompassing both large trial conducting venues and small and often marginal breed specific entities.
- Finally the prancing and dancing style of IPO has become so predominant that many breeds, such as for example the Rottweiler, whatever their admirable characteristics and attributes, are not by their nature competitive. This is not for fundamental reasons of effective working potential but rather because of arbitrary and superficial fashion in style. For better or worse this is, and unless fundamental change occurs will remain, an increasingly exclusive Malinois and German Shepherd venue. For me this is a bitter pill, but it is nevertheless a fact.
The AWDF, while having served well in earlier years, has faltered, has proven under the circumstances of today to be structurally ineffective, unable to provide stability and foster cooperation and accommodation. Leadership ineptitude in terms of policy and tactics, on the part of all concerned, has exacerbated and accelerated this and created crisis, has brought the inevitable to a head. Efforts to patch over the AWDF flaws will only prolong the agony; the time has come to go back to the drawing board.
The ideal national structure would be one venue united in the sense of being all breed, serious about work according to the historical Schutzhund heritage, consisting of truly supportive amateur clubs by and for Americans. The key first step would be to sever subservient and onerous German relationships, breaking free once and for all. This would involve DVG America becoming a truly standalone all breed venue and USCA establishing independence from SV dominance, authority and manipulation.
Once DVG, with a new name reflecting an American identity, and a liberated USCA became truly independent with real control of their own affairs and destiny it would be time to explore a possible merger, resulting in one unified national, all breed, sport specific organization. A key advantage would be, finally, freedom from the incessant SV show breeder interference and the financial burden of the forced support. Even were this not to come to pass two truly American based and controlled entities, competing on the basis of service and cost, would not be an entirely bad thing.
The fly in the ointment would be the eligibility and selection process for the various world teams for European championships. If USCA and the Americanized reincarnation of DVG remained independent this would enable the Eurocrats to play the same old divide and conquer game of manipulation and control. One united American entity would enormously extend our leverage in world affairs and enable us to move forward without external influence or constraint, open the way for long term prosperity.
The primary functions of the various breed specific clubs would be educational, promotional and cooperation with European breed organizations for such things as international competition. Individual trainers would for the most part likely participate in clubs affiliated with the larger national organizations, which would consolidate record keeping and the training and the qualification process for judges. The lack of the overhead of dog show and breed specific function would greatly streamline operation and bring back reasonably priced provision of these basic services.
The devil is of course in the details, and just as balancing state rights with federal authority was the most difficult aspect in the creation of our American constitution defining the ground rules for a national all breed association and the individual national breed clubs will be the core of the matter. Will the breed clubs be able to certify judges, or will this be exclusive to the national association? Would such judges and/or trials be universally accepted or breed specific? Will the breed clubs have direct representation in the national association or will the local training clubs or even individual members participate directly in elections? Starting and prevailing in revolution is difficult, but not as difficult as rebuilding a workable and equitable new national order. The French revolution transpired over a few short years, but it took the French more than a century of strife to by trial and error evolve their current national order.
Unity will require struggle and effort, but the potential upside is enormous, encompassing American working dog affairs once and for all free of conformation show burden, a stable national infrastructure on a rational and financially viable basis, and the ability to play a full and independent role in world canine affairs. Real change is always difficult and perilous, as the struggle of our American Revolution so dramatically illustrates. But to rise above the exploitation inherent in our colonial status demands revolution, just as was the case for our fore fathers in breaking free of British oppression in 1776.
There is reasonable expectation of existing support for an independent DVG; a few years ago there was a serious internal movement among the various clubs to break from Germany and go it alone, and although it did not prevail there is likely substantial residual support for independence. The gravity of the current situation and the opportunity of a truly unified, all breed national venue might well make this the majority view.
The American Revolution succeeded because on a global scale it was a minor theatre in a worldwide conflict between England and France; without French aid and support, including substantial naval intervention, our revolution would most likely have been suppressed. In a similar way the erosion of the SV, as in the enormous, ongoing drop in German registrations and the escalating strife between the WUSV and the FCI, is most seriously debilitating and destabilizing. Their real influence and reach is much diminished, opening the way for a relationship between peers rather than subservience.
In 1980 the SV was the predominant source of credible judges, at least in our perception, and for forty years this provided the leverage for German enforcement of our subservient colonial status. But today, given the obvious fraudulence of the IPO titles distributed to the SV show dogs, the credibility of the SV is most seriously compromised. As a consequence every SV work judge is exposed as either corrupt or implicitly condoning the corruption that is so evident.
In the intervening years IPO has flourished across Europe and as a consequence there are numerous excellent Dutch, Belgian and Nordic judges readily available, many fluent in English. Today we no longer need the SV and in particular we no longer need SV judges, which was the reason for our dependence in the first place. Nothing can stand in the way of USCA independence other than a lack of courage or will.
There are numerous ancillary benefits that could emerge from a renewal of the American infrastructure. Since DVG America came into existence as the result of a quarrel in high places, with long forgotten and irrelevant issues, in the late 1970s, reconciliation and unification would be a major step forward, a final healing of an old wound. Complete separation from breed club politics and manipulation, and freedom from incessant pressure to lower standards and evolve ever softer dogs for the pet market in and of itself would be more than sufficient reason for a restructuring.
The time has come. The question is whether we have the courage and will to grasp this opportunity for independence, integrity and prosperity.
Meltdown in America
Orginizations and Conflicts
Legacy Lost, the Other Breeds
The Americans