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Moment of Truth

Jim Engel    March 3, 2013

The United Schutzhund Clubs of America (USCA) has been in existence for nearly forty years. Today it is at a turning point. Down one path is subservience, to become in effect SV Distribution America GmbH entirely subject to German show dog interests, to aid SV breeders, judges and other insiders in exploiting the American market. There would be no real point in elections or officers, the SV could just appoint an overseer to make us toe the German line, to make sure we remain sufficiently obedient and deferential.

USCA has been given an ultimatum from the SV president to accept WDA members, scorebooks and judges on the same basis as USCA members, scorebooks and judges. If this were to come to pass, if WDA members were to have all of the privileges of membership with none of the obligations, what would be the point of USCA membership?

This is the ultimatum:

Make no mistake. This is not about trial entries and scorebooks; it is about power, about making USCA cower and submit, about shame. What is being demanded goes beyond obedience to subservience, to prostration before German authority. The easy path would be to give in, for they are training us just as they train a dog, by offering an easy way out.

The SV is no longer the leading working dog organization in the world; it is in honest reality no longer a working dog organization at all. In America the two police dog journals usually have a Malinois on the cover. The Malinois is the becoming the elite police dog, the preference of the best handlers and trainers worldwide. The US military breeding program is Malinois; a Malinois went on the mission to take out bin Laden. The WUSV is not a premiere event any longer, it is where the GSD hides from the Malinois.

I do not say this to favor or promote the Malinois, but to report the facts. Indeed, the rise of the Malinois is the best possible thing for serious working German Shepherd people, a warning to take action while time remains. Competition is good for all.

There is an obvious, simple solution. Call their bluff. Transform USCA into an American organization rather than a German organization; it would not even require a name change. As an all-breed national working dog club and a member of the AWDF we would have access to FCI judges from all of Europe – Finland, Belgium, Austria, even Germany. Even SV judges could come under FCI-AWDF auspices rather than through the SV. Anyone wanting go to the WUSV could just enter the WDA trial and qualify.

I have talked to Jim Alloway and other leaders about these issues, and the decisions hang in the balance. Everyone concerned with a serious American working dog culture should become involved, be heard. We are at a crossroads, and there is an opportunity, perhaps a final opportunity, to take American working dog affairs into American hands once and for all. All we have to lose is subservience to overbearing German bureaucrats.

Jim Engel, Marengo    © Copyright March 3, 2013