Appeasement in Switzerland
The American Working Dog Federation has put forth this statement of policy:
"The AWDF has taken a stand on the removal of the stick hits during the protection phase of the IPO routines by issuing a public statement. To ensure that the voice of the AWDF is present at the next FCI meeting where the rules will be discussed, we will be sending Frank Phillips to represent our interests. At this time there is no further gain to be made by boycotting the 2017 FCI IPO Championship and the AWDF intends to send a team to the event to represent our country and organization." February 15, 2017
I strongly disagree. To participate in a travesty is to lend credibility, to provide an endorsement. An IPO "championship" where the decoy merely waves the stick is a grievous insult to the creators, founders and protectors of these breeds, to the generations of breeders and trainers, and prior to that herdsmen and shepherds since time immemorial, who struggled to build and protect this working dog heritage.
Clk to enlarge
To deal with the obvious the AWDF simply cannot, and will not, send a team to "the 2017 FCI IPO Championship." It is not possible. Although the IPO program existent today is seriously watered down, some would even say approaching the edge of triviality, there remain formal trial rules with specific requirements for appropriate stick hits. Since these blows — integral to the validity of the trial and required by the rules — will be omitted the farce to be played out in Switzerland may be many despicable things, but it will not and cannot be an IPO trial. There simply will be no 2017 IPO champion, and all the weasel words conjured up by apologists cannot change this undeniable truth.
Since this statement begins by proclaiming an impossibility, an absurdity, how can the AWDF expect to merit and maintain credibility? Is this only a children's game we have been playing all of these years, subject to the whim of a moment? How can it be that there are licensed IPO judges willing to flaunt the rules, to disgrace themselves by shamelessly violating their obligation to above all else serve as guardians of the integrity of the trial? Are future trials to have exemptions? Is there to be an application form, a price list?
Were a local American club to omit the stick hits and award titles we would rightly denounce all involved, starting with the judge and the hosting club. (That many strange things go on in Germany, as evidenced by pathetic performances of supposedly titled SV dogs at protection tests prior to conformation shows, must remain a topic for another day.) Yet when the show dog controlled upper echelons of the FCI reach down and dictate working dog affairs, granting dispensations from on high with no interest in or concern for the integrity of process, we all scramble to bow down and comply, embarrass and disgrace ourselves by participating in a malignant lie, step forward to participate in the canine equivalent of a black mass.
Let us move on to "the next FCI meeting where the rules will be discussed." We know very well that the FCI Utility Dog Commission, led by the now infamous Frans Jansen, ultimately has no real power, can play around with the trivialities of procedure and process but is subject to intervention from above, as in the omission of the stick at this pseudo championship. We know full well, Jansen has stated, that this is only step one of the plan, dictated by the show dog elements of the FCI hierarchy, to permanently remove the stick. Nobody in the actual working community will have any voice in this. And yet we are to send a team to endorse this travesty, to clear the way for the next step, to show that ultimately we will always tuck tail and grovel?
No matter what precise formal structure this upcoming FCI meeting takes, no decisions will be made or influenced, indeed, no real decision makers will be at the table. This is merely a fig leaf, a charade so that member organizations, the Utility Dog Commission or even guests such as the AWDF, can pretend due diligence, report to their membership that they stood in opposition, fought the good fight, before acquiescing to and thus participating in this trivialization of the IPO trial.
Does not this willingness to participate verify and reinforce the stereotype of Americans as shallow dilatants, dreaming of Europe in terms of drinking, partying and rubbing shoulders with the supposedly elite and important people, aspiring to little more than to wave a tin cup? Do we care nothing about the culture, the real potential of these breeds to serve mankind, about honoring the founders, those who persevered the heritage? Are we so shallow that we cannot defer gratification, understand that to stand on principle this year is necessary for validity in future years, our obligation to the heritage?
By participating in this atrocity in Switzerland we are showing weakness and hypocrisy, signaling that after a token show of resistance, for home front consumption, we can be relied on to yield at each successive step. We will empower and embolden our adversaries, which will in the end cause us to look back and see that we were, through weakness and lack of resolve and character, directly responsible for the demise of our working culture.
What will be the consequence of participation in this farce in Switzerland? It will verify and enhance the expectation of the show dog establishment, including the upper levels of the SV, that we can be lead and maneuvered like children, that they can guide and manipulate us into abandoning our heritage and bringing disgrace upon ourselves. That they can hire any number of Judases for much less than thirty pieces of silver.
This is indeed the moment of truth, for when we yield on the stick hits even the presence of the stick will become an "unacceptable psychological stress" for the dogs and actual biting in the trial will become unacceptable violence in a peace loving society. And to what end? To alleviate the embarrassment of the show line German Shepherds? To further enrich and empower the corrupt show line breeders and their marketing organizations?
What it comes down to is that this is being dictated by the FCI establishment, the conformation exhibitionists, and the lesson they are going to take home is that the working community is weak and they are entirely free to go on trivializing the IPO trial, making it little more than a sham, a venue for lying about the pretend working potential of their pathetic show lines, most especially the German Shepherds.
When this comes to pass, every American who has struggled to establish this culture here, made personal sacrifice to honor the working heritage will — along with the Europeans and the rest of the world — hang their heads in shame. But there will be others, in whose interests this atrocity is being perpetrated, the profit minded show breeders and carpet baggers of every stripe, too busy counting their money to know personal shame.
If we participate in this atrocity then the people involved, the leaders and decision makers, will forever bear the burden and the shame of betraying the American working dog movement in the hour of its greatest peril.