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AKC Delegate
Report
March 2023 by Margaret DiCorleto, Delegate
I attended the March meeting of the Ameri-
can Kennel Club held in Newark , NJ.
All committee meetings were shorter than
usual to allow interested delegates to go to
New York to visit the Museum of the Dog.
Highlights:
The 2023 AKC Canine Health Foundation
Health Conference will be held August 11-13
at the Hyatt Regency in St. Louis, Missouri.
Topics will include Periodontal Disease, Gut
Microbiome, Tick-borne Disease, Pain Per-
ception and Management, and Cancer.
The pilot program allowing Canine Partners
to be shown by Junior Handlers has been
discontinued. Ownership requirements for
Juniors have been relaxed and it has been rec-
ommended that this change be permanent.
AKC Staff is pursuing an initiative to iden-
tify breeder judges via AKC’s registration
and judge record data. Criteria for “breeder
judge” would parallel the requirements for a
person applying for their initial breed(s) to
judge based on experience as a breeder in a
breed. Judging Operations will be contact-
ing all parent clubs asking if they maintain a
list of breeder judges for its breed as a cross- sideration.
reference. Once finalized, the list of breeder-
judges for each breed will be published on the The alternative to granting this to just a single
AKC website and will be available for users to specialty club is to consider changing the
print or download. AKC conformation clubs
will be informed of the list for all breeds and
educated on the benefit of using breed spe-
cialists on their judging panels.
The Stewarding 101 course is near comple-
tion. It is designed to educate interested
individuals about the fundamentals of stew-
arding. It will be available in the AKC Canine
College at NO cost. There will be 3 modules
developed and approved by subject matter
experts. Once finalized, an announcement
will be sent to clubs and fanciers. The
Certified Steward Program and a page on
20
the AKC website will launch concurrently.
Anyone who elects to complete the require-
ments to be listed as an “AKC Certified Stew-
ard” will be published on the AKC website
similar to parent club approved mentors. This
will provide a resource to clubs needing ring
stewards. For more information: https://
link.akc.org/view/5b8e75db3f92a47e7352d4-
68ijg2k.b/7e26f6d7?fbclid=IwAR3O2MW
Sn27Z1Gc0k29J2V9GIbY6tcDtClqESK6a
gJ_ZS9zd3-HqSMHNnSE
There has been much discussion about parent
clubs not being able to hire full-service su-
perintendents for their specialty shows be-
cause the licensed superintendents turn them
down. The superintendents offer a variety of
reasons for this, but many clubs have been
left to struggle with finding a show secretary
and finding the necessary ring equipment for
their events.
The AKC Board has received a request from
an independent specialty club asking per-
mission to award a 3-point major to their
Reserve Winners Dog/Bitch since their class
entry normally exceeds 2 times the number
required for a 5-point major in their division.
Discussion has led to an alternative for con-
rule so that it would apply to all specialties
where the class entry is equivalent to 2 times
the required number for a 5-point major.
Staff reviewed events in 2022 (excluding any
National Specialties) to determine how many
times there was an entry of 2 times the num-
ber needed for a 5-point major. From January
1-November 11, 2022, there were 125,796 ex-
hibits awarded Reserve Winners at all events.
Of those, 416 instances (0.3%) were in entries
of 2 times the 5-point major number. 121
different breeds made up these instances with
45 (37%) being low entry breeds. The in-
stances were distributed across 144 all-breed