American Consequences of the WUSV Vindication

Jim Engel

The German court ruling establishing of the right of the WUSV to interact directly with USCA and other WUSV national clubs without intrusive FCI interference will have profound consequences for American working dog affairs. While the full ramifications will emerge in time, the illusion of FCI domination and unfettered control of world canine affairs has been placed in check; national breed clubs will now enjoy a much broader right to interact with other nations, particularly where there is a breed or sport affinity, according to their own interests and desires.

This bright new day in Europe will also bring clarity and resolution to the ongoing AWDF crisis in America. The Anne Camper delusion of the power to paste an FCI logo on the AWDF web site and assert power and control over USCA, never based in reality, has been eradicated.

Over the past eighteen months there has been an ongoing conspiracy by elements of the AWDF clubs and the national officers to marginalize and ultimately subjugate or obliterate USCA, apparently based at least partially on an expectation of implicit FCI backing and support. The channels and content of communication remain murky, but there has been obvious collusion by individuals on either side of the Atlantic.

So what are the implications of all of this for the AWDF, Queen Anne and the seven dwarfs? The stark reality is that for all practical purposes the AWDF is dead in the water. They have for two decades been small, fragile, badly led and increasingly irrelevant. Now with so many burned bridges there may simply be no way back from the brink; they lie in a grave of their own making. This is a melancholy ending to what we began in the late 1980s as an idealistic and well intentioned program for a vital and prosperous national movement.

Today four decades into the modern American working dog movement the reality remains that any national organization without USCA in a prominent role is unworkable, the very idea being absurd. Given the newfound vigor of the WUSV USCA is perfectly viable with or without any sort of national American umbrella organization.

While many within USCA are rightly jubilant at this vindication, this ongoing crisis and drama has been to the severe detriment of the American movement as a whole. Without the USCA trainers, GSD and others, AWDF total membership is a small fraction of what it was two years ago and most of their clubs, including the AWMA, are virtually empty shells with very little membership engagement or ongoing public presence beyond babble on the social media.

They will no doubt continue to run their private FCI IPO qualification trials for the benefit of their insiders, but they have nothing else of relevance or substance to offer, no public presence at all. Because of the onerous restrictions and lack of transparency and openness the FCI qualifier is damaged goods, destined to fade in importance and prestige as the real power of the FCI and the AWDF posers wanes. The USCA trainers who remain interested will for the moment have to jump through Annie's hoops, but such an absurd situation can not prevail in the long term. The vast majority of the remaining AWDF trainers, the DVG club members, are part of an illicit German entity falsely on American soil, a fragile existence at best. In perhaps the most realistic metric, the number of yearly new IPO III titles, beyond the DVG and the AWMA trainers the AWDF total is in the range of at most twenty to thirty yearly. This is not a prosperous or viable situation.

Since the dawn of the twenty first century the Belgian Malinois has emerged as an increasingly significant player in diverse sport venues as well as in military and police service. This is a immensely positive development for the working dog community in general and the German Shepherd as a breed in particular, providing after a century of unopposed predominance the competition that is so essential for ever increasing durability, cost effectiveness and excellence in service.

Through the 1980s the Malinois primarily evolved in the ring sport and KNPV environments, largely separate from the Schutzhund style sleeve venues and the FCI affiliated national clubs. The more recent participation in Schutzhund and then the IPO venues has necessitated the emergence of FCI affiliated Euro clubs and created problems in that most of the best breeding stock held NVBK or other non FCI registration. For this and other reasons there have been serious growing pains. Over past decades the working breeders and trainers of both the German and Belgian Shepherds have suffered under onerous interference from the FCI in terms of recognition of registration and breeding requirements. This should be a solid basis for cooperation.

In America the AWMA was going through a similar evolution, making steady progress and building membership and credibility. But today, as a result of the leadership of Anne Camper, the AWMA is dead in the water. The entire judge's college has resigned in protest at their shenanigans and they apparently lack the commitment or resources to schedule any sort of fall championship. Outside of USCA all of the American working clubs will continue to flounder until there is new, credible, leadership.

While USCA is stronger and more predominant than ever, that is not enough for long term American working dog prosperity. There is still a fundamental need for an over all, all breed national entity. Unfortunately, it appears that the AWDF is beyond redemption, that it perhaps must run its course and fail entirely before something can be built for the future on new, firm ground. This time around real power must reside in the aggregate vote of the trainers themselves as individuals rather than with the phony clubs constructed out of thin air by dog politicians for their own aggrandizement and profit, as we see in the empty shells making up the AWDF today. A national organization without USCA is futile and pointless, and USCA is never again going to become involved unless their representation and influence is by law rather than agreements among gentlemen proportional their numbers in terms of members and titles.

Anne Camper, aided and abetted by her pathetic squad of posers and the behind the scenes manipulator, has precipitated this American fiasco, which has finally come home to roost. USCA was unwise in the first decade of this century, adapting a disinterested, hands off posture not foreseeing that the merger of the FCI IPO program and German Schutzhund would provide the AWDF for the first time in almost two decades something of value, the qualification trial. This provided Camper the opportunity to manipulate, and encouraged by her silent patrons manipulate she did. She bet the farm, which was never really hers, and lost big time.

In summary, USCA is on firm ground with able leadership, ready to move forward in the rest of the century. For the other breeds and clubs, not so much. The unmitigated disasters that are today the AWDF and the AWMA will ultimately implode entirely without new leadership, and the continued existence of the dwarfs is tenuous at best.

As for Camper, the implosion of the AWMA and the AWDF, and the American working culture generally beyond USCA, will become her legacy.

Background and Reference:

Emergence of a new Canine World Order
Download the Police Dog Book
Glossary
Orginizations and Conflicts
Legacy Lost, the Other Breeds
The Americans
Style and Opinion Sports
Has Sport Subverted the Trial?
How We Play the Game
Commercialization of Schutzhund
The Mother State