Living the Bigger Life

My kids and grandkids came to visit me in East Jesus last week for the first time since the beginning of Covid. Travel for two working parents, with a 7-year-old and an almost 10-year-old, is hard, especially this time of year, and so I was grateful that they were willing to make and could manage the not-easy trek from Arizona to see me and my aging mother.

My stepson met up with his wife and kids here mid-trip, after a business meeting in Orlando, and I worried that his schedule would leave him too tired for all our planned activities. But my daughter-in-law reassured me that he would be game for whatever we planned, because the two of them ascribe to the mantra, “Live the bigger life.” 

In other words, when they are too tired from life’s chores and challenges to want to hop on that hillbilly hayride through woods and fields decorated with Christmas lights, they think about the treasured memories they’re creating and the precious time they’re sharing as a family, and “live the bigger life,” before the opportunity to do so is gone.

A choice that seems easy to make, and yet, why do so many struggle with it?

In particular, why does our Great American Kennel Club seem to struggle to make that choice? 

Why does it consistently choose to live the smaller life?

The AKC’s mission statement sets out such simple, straightforward, worthwhile objectives — “advocate for the purebred dog as a family companion, advance canine health and well-being, work to protect the rights of all dog owners and promote responsible dog ownership”— a road map to reach the bigger life, if you will.

Advocate.

Advance.

Work.

Promote.

All are verbs that insist upon action to move us, our sport and our life with dogs forward. Yet, too often it seems, the AKC is content to stay in place and settle for passive revenue return instead. Given the choice between pursuing the bigger life or much smaller objectives and much easier paths, the AKC seems to consistently choose the shortcut. 

A recent “60 Minutes” episode featuring purebred-dog enthusiast Anderson Cooper focused on research involving purebred dogs and how it benefits not only the dogs but humans as well. It was a compelling and exciting piece, preaching the predictability and importance of purebred dogs, that reached a broad audience. Much of the filming took place with Duke researchers. For those unfamiliar with Tobacco Road geography, Duke (or Dook, as we spell it in my family) is eight miles, give or take, from the AKC offices in Raleigh. A stiff five iron away. And yet, AKC was not a part of the broadcast, and from what I observed on its social media, gave it no mention or promotion. (You can find out on AKC’s Facebook page whether your dog has a belly button, however.) I suppose in order to involve AKC’s Raleigh office in anything, first executive staff and the board would need to know where it’s located, not to mention visit it, but that would require big-picture vision, beyond the times when they are looking for staff to cut. 

But that’s only one example. Sadly, there are so, so many more choices that demonstrate there is no real commitment to following the mission roadmap.

For example, why does the organization choose to permit so many shows, so many multi-day clusters, often multiple times a year at the same venue (curious that Springfield keeps getting so many shows), putting handlers and owners, but most importantly, our dogs, on the road and at shows, day after day, week in and week out, over the course of an entire year, while also often diluting the quality and quantity of the exhibits at those shows?

Why does the organization choose to grease the skids for judges to gain approval for more breeds and more groups, rather than increase requirements, and elevate those who truly deserve to be moved forward, and why does the “re-certification” look way more like a revenue gimmick than an earnest evaluation?

Why does the organization choose to roll out “Safe Sport” training to field staff and its registered handlers, but stops short of instituting the actual program designed to protect vulnerable young people, including the Safe Sport Act-required reporting, training and abuse-prevention policies, encompassing anyone involved with youth in our sport, including, handlers, judges, show officials, volunteers and coaches, but most of all, starting with an unequivocal policy statement from AKC denouncing abuse and acknowledging its responsibility to ensure our sport is safe for young people?

Why does the organization choose to talk the talk when it comes to the protection of dogs, by adopting a “cruelty policy,” and then allows those suspended for violating it to subsequently return to the sport, sending the message to the public, and importantly, to the animal extremist organizations who constantly allege abuses in our sport and our breeding practices in the media and to legislators, that it doesn’t intend to walk the walk?

Choose the bigger life, AKC. 

Before the opportunity to do so is gone.