The vivacious and dainty Pomeranian is this month’s judges’ choice
November 2017 £ £5.00
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Luisa Scammell/The Kennel Club ©
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Contents Opinion A broad church
Contents
November 2017
4
22
6 Viewpoint
Judges’ choice
Paul Eardley reflects on the many and varied activities the Kennel Club oversees
Vulnerable breeds
The Welsh Springer Spaniel and the Bearded Collie have entered the ‘at risk’ register for the first time
Simon Parsons casts a critical eye over proposals to review the KC’s membership structure
24 The Pomeranian
7 News
Art & culture
The Kennel Club opens its new offices in Aylesbury
Personality profile In conversation with Chris Amoo
8
The musician, songwriter and successful breeder speaks to Bill King
Health matters The eyes have it...
8
Chris C h Amoo
The breed standard plus breed experts choose their top three dogs
33 The Queen’s Pomeranian
More treasures from the Kennel Club’s art collection
34 Book corner
Three recent additions to the Kennel Club’s library come up for review
22
Vulnerable breeds
12
Has DNA testing rendered eye examinations obsolete?
Special features Off to a flying start
16
The KC’s new centre of excellence for working dogs
18
Canicross
18 Born to run
The sport of canicross has grown over the past few years. Lisa Moir finds out why
five years of life 20 Twenty skills training
Celebrating the largest dog-training programme in the UK
The Kennel Club, Clarges Street, London W1J 8AB www.thekennelclub.org.uk Chairman: Simon Luxmoore Vice Chairman: Steve Croxford Chief Executive: Rosemary Smart Secretary: Caroline Kisko
Customer services: 01296 318540 Petlog Main Number: 01296 336579 Petlog Lost & Found: 01296 737600 Library/Gallery: 020 7518 1009 Insurance Enquiries: 0800 369 9445
Editor: Carrie Thomas Editorial Co-ordinator: Sara Wilde
Editorial Panel: Bill Moores (Chairman), Ian Gabriel, Philippa Gilbert, Robert Greaves, Revd. Bill King, Gay Robertson Editorial enquiries: kennel.gazette@thekennelclub.org.uk The Kennel Club, Clarges Street, London W1J 8AB Subscriptions: 020 7518 1016 subs@kennelgazette.org.uk
Kennel Gazette is published monthly on behalf of the Kennel Club by BPG Media www.bpgmedia.co.uk To advertise contact Andrea Walters a.walters@bpgmedia.co.uk Printed by Warners Midlands Plc Kennel Gazette is the monthly publication
of the Kennel Club. Views and opinions expressed within the Kennel Gazette are the personal opinions of the original authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Kennel Club. Cover photo: Ch Lireva’s Tarquin Fly the Bear, bred and owned by Averil Cawthera-Purdy. He was the Crufts 2017 Best of Breed winner and is the son of highly successful Ch Lireva’s Sir Fin the Net. Photographer: ©Lisa Croft-Elliott The Kennel Club
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On my mind
A broad church Keeping pace with the many and varied activities it oversees is one of the Kennel Club’s greatest challenges
I
was privileged to be elected to the Board of the Kennel Club at its AGM in May of this year. Having been involved in the dog showing world for most of my life and having sat on the Breed Standards and Stud Book Committee for the last 12 or so years, I hoped that I was equipped to take on the challenge. In addition, having been a solicitor since 1986 and an in-house lawyer and company secretary at large corporates for the last 19 years or so, I felt that some of my business experience could be of use. I gained a deeper insight into the workings of the Kennel Club a couple of years ago when I was invited to sit on the Governance Working Party, which was discussing some of the detail around the incorporation of the Kennel Club and the governance required to support a company limited by guarantee. Through my corporate lens, which is my default position and my comfort zone given my professional background and experience, I did wonder if we had gone far enough. However as they say ‘the devil is in the detail’ so please read on. Having attended my first few Board meetings what are my initial thoughts? Well my overriding theme is that despite my time in the dog world I have barely scratched the surface as regards to the various dog-related sports and activities supported by the Kennel Club. It is indeed a very broad church. Where do I begin to try and give an overview? To put some flesh on these bones: • The Kennel Club operates as a public spokesperson on dog matters and has a heavy PR and lobbying responsibility both at national government and local government levels not forgetting the devolved assemblies. • It operates a sizeable business and an important part of that business is the maintenance of the various registers. The integrity of those registers is an integral part of its central function.
Photo: ©Heidi Hudson/The Kennel Club
By Paul Eardley
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Photo: ©Alan Seymour
Photo: Morley von Sternberg ©/MCM
On my mind
PAUL EARDLEY
• It owns property and manages property interests. • It supports many charities and it lends its name to two of these namely the Kennel Club Charitable Trust and the Kennel Club Educational Trust. • It operates the club providing excellent facilities for its members. • It collects and maintains an important collection of art and artefacts which are not only investments but also preserve heritage. These are also an important historical record. • It maintains an impressive gallery and an extensive library. Most importantly I should highlight the multiple and varied aspects of the sport which it supports, regulates and governs. Many of us (me included) are mostly familiar with the dog showing world. However the Kennel Club’s responsibilities cover not only the showing fraternity, but also obedience, agility and field trials. Oh, and I forgot to mention that it runs the most famous dog show in the world. In fact the Kennel Club runs a number of large events, as there are large competitions within the other sports as well. These are possibly not as well-known as Crufts but of equal importance to their enthusiasts. Each of these events needs to be carefully managed, budgeted for, promoted, monitored and fit for purpose. So, the Kennel Club staff are required to be experts in all of these fields, one minute considering quite complex business issues, the next considering charities, law and regulation and at the same time maybe
managing or participating in a difficult external PR issue. However, all of this is not delivered just by the staff. There are numerous volunteers, some of whom give up literally days and weeks of their time to support all these activities. The various committees, working parties and other groups are generally manned by volunteers working alongside Kennel Club staff, and quite frankly without the volunteers many of the activities would grind to a halt. As if all this is not enough to get one’s head around, like it or not we now live in an extremely fast paced and changing world both digitally and attitudinally. We constantly read about changing social habits, agile working, flexible working and political correctness. In everyday life nowadays people are pressed for time and concentration spans are limited. Our various sports are competing for this time. Social media means that issues can develop a head of steam in literally minutes and the window in which to sometimes make quite difficult judgement calls is very limited. So, as you can imagine, a set of papers for a Kennel Club Board meeting are varied and can be quite extensive. A thorough pre-read is a prerequisite. There is a well-known saying that you cannot teach an old dog new tricks. Well this old dog is learning new tricks at every meeting he attends and finding it most enjoyable. Thank you Kennel Club members for giving me this opportunity. ●
Paul has been involved with dogs and dog showing for virtually his entire life. His principal interests are Australian Terriers and Dandie Dinmont Terriers. However he has a keen interest in most terrier breeds and a number of other breeds besides. In the ‘real world’ Paul is a solicitor specialising in company law. In his early career Paul worked for solicitors’ firms advising multiple corporate clients. However, for the last 18 years he has worked as an in-house lawyer within listed companies. Paul’s current role is Company Secretary and General Counsel with Debenhams plc, a role which he has performed for the last 10 years. Alongside a busy career Paul manages to find time to exhibit Australian Terriers, to handle Dandie Dinmont Terriers and to judge fairly regularly at championship and open shows. Paul is the Australian Terrier breed note writer for Our Dogs. Paul was elected to the Kennel Club Board in May of this year. He has sat on the Breed Standards and Stud Book Committee for over 10 years and is currently the terrier group representative on that committee. He is also a trustee of the Kennel Club staff pension scheme and a member of the Finance Committee.
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Viewpoint
Viewpoint By Simon Parsons
A
t this month’s special meeting, Kennel Club members will have the chance to vote on Board proposals to review the club’s membership structure. These were outlined at the Annual General Meeting in May and the most significant of them is to remove the maximum number of members. For decades this was set at 750; some years ago members voted to double it to 1,500 and that move did much to open up the club so that it is now far more representative of the people participating in the world of pedigree dogs than it ever used to be. Now the plan is to remove the ceiling altogether, and I for one hope that this will receive the wholehearted support of the current membership. In my view it is of vital importance to the credibility of the club that it is as inclusive as is practical of those whose activities it governs. That will give its officials extra clout when dealing with the government and with other bodies whose decisions can affect our world. As at present the proposed structure will require new members either to be proposed by existing members,
or to have come up via the associate membership route, having had that status for five years before applying for full membership. There should therefore be no greater risk than there is today of those who do not share the club’s aims and objectives being admitted. For some genuine ‘dog folk’ cost has been a major factor in whether they are able to join the club. The annual subscription is never likely to be cheap but another part of the proposals would remove one barrier with the removal of the joining fee, so that new members would no longer be faced by a significant double outlay in their first year.
It will also be possible, if the proposals go through, for members to propose new candidates more frequently. Perhaps we should all make an effort to use this facility to encourage our friends and colleagues within our breeds to join the fold. In particular it would be good to see greater representation among the membership from activities other than the show world. For those of us who have always hoped that the Kennel Club will lead the way with the support of the ‘dog sports’ as a whole, this proposal is the most significant development since women were allowed full membership. That change took place many decades later than it should have done; let’s hope that in 2017 we can all prove ourselves to be much more in tune with the spirit of the times.
SIMON PARSONS Simon Parsons has owned a variety of breeds but his first loves are the Corgis. He worked for Dog World newspaper for 39 years and awards Challenge Certificates in 13 breeds. In 2014 he instigated the revival of the Kennel Gazette
Photo: ©Laura Kolbach/The Kennel Club
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News and comment
Kennel Club opens new Aylesbury office there was no down time to any single service during the transitioning of both service and staff to the new building.” ● The new address for the Kennel Club offices in Aylesbury is Kennel Club House, Gatehouse Way, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire HP19 8DB. The telephone number remains the same; call 01296 318540. ●
Photo: ©The Kennel Club
London headquarters further up Clarges Street in Mayfair. The money also enabled the Kennel Club to purchase its recentlyopened Emblehope and Burngrange Estate in Northumberland which it aims to develop as a centre of excellence for working dogs. The Aylesbury office handles high volume activities on behalf of the club, with the monthly average equating to 48,000 telephone calls, 20,000 puppy registrations, 14,000 transfer applications and 70,000 microchip recordings. Caroline Kisko, Kennel Club Secretary, said: “It is strange to think that the Kennel Club has had premises in Aylesbury for 18 years as, for some of us, it seems like only yesterday that the original building in Alton House Office Park was opened. We are very pleased that the move into the new Kennel Club offices went very smoothly – in fact
Photo: ©Zoe Guild/The Kennel Club
T
he Kennel Club has opened its new offices in Aylesbury, having moved a matter of yards away from its previous home in the Alton House Office Park in Gatehouse Way. The Kennel Club moved its core operational activities, namely the registration, Petlog and call centre services to Aylesbury from its headquarters in London in the summer of 1999. In the original move, five members of the London team relocated to Aylesbury, while other members of staff were recruited locally. Alton House was obtained on a 10-year lease which was then renewed in 2009. The new Aylesbury address is known as Kennel Club House and its purchase was made possible through the £12m payment that the Kennel Club received when it struck a deal with British Land in 2013 to move its
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Special feature
Born to run
Get your trainers on and discover the exciting sport of canicross By Lisa Moir
A
a harness), into classes to help owners and their dogs train together to improve their fitness and achieve results safely.
“With a UK dog population of more than 8.5 million, it perhaps should come as no surprise that canicross is increasing at a massive rate” Lindsay said “My passion lies in training dogs to do a job they enjoy and watch owners get fitter while at the same time developing a stronger bond and deeper understanding of their pet. Cani-Fit was created in 2011 and since then we have seen about an 80 per cent annual increase of attendees at our classes with over 500 people now training with us during the year. Our events attract over 100 entries and this has steadily increased by 20 — 30 per cent each year. It’s really
exciting to see just how much the sport has grown over the past six years and continues to do so.” With a UK dog population of more than 8.5 million, it perhaps should come as no surprise that canicross is increasing at a massive rate. The hustle and bustle of modern life leaves time limited for dog owners constantly challenged to ‘squeeze it all in’ and canicross provides the perfect opportunity to exercise dog and owner at the same time. Not only does it offer a more intense physical workout for dog and owner compared with a traditional walk, it also provides mental stimulation for the dog, giving him the chance to use his brain in a work mode to follow directional commands. Canicross has also proved beneficial in helping dogs with behavioural issues, with many owners reporting their troubled dogs are calmer and more balanced after taking up the sport including 32-year-old Polish national Agata Aleksandra Zaremba who stumbled across canicross while searching for an agility class to take her rescue Staffordshire Bull Terrier X Border Collie (Roger) along to. Agata Aleksandra said: “As a rescue Roger had a lot of behavioural problems including separation anxiety, and despite settling in well I just felt like something was missing as he couldn’t be let off lead. I couldn’t
Photo: ©Martin Drake, Drakies Photography
s the breed show season begins to slow down for the year, the exciting canicross season is just revving up. Canicross is an exhilarating sport that sees owners running ‘off-road’ with their dogs over various distances. The human is attached to the dog via a waist belt and bungee line attached to a padded harness worn by the dog, which pulls out ahead; quite a thrilling sight. Since its introduction to the UK in 2000, canicross has established a mass following with thousands of owners regularly taking to the great outdoors running with their four-legged friends for fun, fitness and competitively. It continues to grow year on year and even received the Kennel Club seal of approval last year, as it became a recognised activity. One person that has seen first-hand the growth of the sport in recent years is owner of Scottish-based fitness academy ‘CaniFit’, Lindsay Johnson. Involved in sled dog sports prior to her introduction to canicross, Lindsay identified an opportunity to incorporate elements of canicross, scooter (a specially designed off-road scooter with one or two dogs attached is ridden by the human and the dog(s) in harness pull via a line attached to the scooter), and bikejor (the human typically uses a mountain bike connected via a line to their dog using
Agata Aleksandra Zaremba and her rescue dog Roger, bikejoring in the Cani-Sports Scotland race at Strathallan Castle
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Photo: ©Cani-Fit
Photo: ©Cani-Fit
A Cani-Fit training class in full swing
Agata Aleksandra with Roger, competing at the British Sleddog Sports Federation National Championship in Wales
find an agility club with space, and just happened across an article about canicross, and thought that could work for us. All my life I hated running, but after that first run together I was hooked! We started training more and more and eventually signed up for our first competitions. Since we started canicross Roger’s behaviour has changed totally. He used to be reactive towards other dogs, super hyper and bouncy, which annoyed other dogs too. Canicross taught him not to worry about and have respect for other dogs as we need to overtake them and be overtaken. He learnt to be calm and patient before the races and at home he knows he needs to catch up on sleep and get his energy back so whenever he is left alone he no longer chews things. “Canicross has been amazing for me too. I went from being a miserable person to a very happy dog owner who looks forward to getting outdoors with my dog. I know that when out with my dogs I can forget any problems and it helps to clear my head after a stressful day. Roger and canicross have shown me a whole different world — it really has changed my life.” While people’s motivations for getting involved in canicross in the first place vary extensively, what’s been clear from my research is that once you start, it quickly becomes addictive and very much a lifestyle choice. For those with a competitive spirit there are plenty of events all over the UK and the world, attracting entries from all levels of fitness and ability. Gearing up to take part in the World Championships in Poland later this month is 16-year-old Jada Amoah from East Kilbride, who came across the sport four years ago after reading a flyer at her local veterinary practice. Now an accomplished canicrosser with several accolades including Junior Scottish Series Champion, British Champion, and European Junior silver medallist, Jada is training really hard to hit the worlds at full speed. “I started competing
Photo: ©Take2Events
Photo: ©Event Images by Mel Parry
Cani-Fit’s Lindsay Johnson racing with her Alaskan Malamute
Jada Amoah and her dog Fuzzy blasting their way to become British number one in the British Sleddog Sports Federation National Championships
in 2013 at local events and did really well which motivated me to keep pushing myself to get faster. At the time I was being bullied at school and my involvement in canicross really helped boost my confidence and give me more belief in myself. I now run with my dog at least four times a week as well as trying to get out on my own doing hill work and park runs. Canicross has provided me with a unique opportunity and I love it. It has helped me to understand more about myself and my dog, and given me the extra responsibility to ensure my dogs are healthy, fit and ready to compete at the highest level. Through canicross I’ve travelled all over the UK and Europe meeting like-minded people who are perfectly happy being outside in all weather having a great time with their dogs. It has made me appreciate my dogs even more and truly recognise their unconditional love, willingness to learn and please me; our bond is incredible.” The lower temperatures brought about by autumn make for more suitable running conditions for your dog compared with the warmer summer months. So instead of shutting your curtains and staying indoors on the colder nights, why not get your running shoes on and get outdoors with your four-legged friend, you never know, it could be the first run of many. ●
LISA MOIR Lisa Moir is a former Dog World columnist who won the PAWSCARS Columnist of the Year award in 2017. She has been heavily involved in the show scene for the past 25 years and has enjoyed success in the handling and breed rings. She is particularly passionate about supporting and developing the younger generation in the pedigree dog show world
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