Today’s Show with Laura Reeves

Our dog show community was rocked recently, with the announcement that the board of  Eugene Kennel Club had voted to dissolve the club following its 2017 show in September.

This was literally a visceral shock to our collective system, particularly for Pacific Northwest exhibitors. The club held its first “point” show in 1948. For **69** years, generations of fanciers have attended these shows. When my family started showing dogs in the early ‘80s, Eugene Kennel Club was part of the infamous CalOre circuit of shows that moved every day or two to a new location in a big circle from Northern California to Eastern Oregon and back down the I5 corridor, stopping in my home town, Roseburg, at the very end of the march.

The Beginning of Cluster Dog Shows

Just a side note, for newer exhibitors who complain about long, hard show weeks in major locations (think Florida in January or the Houston shows in July), keep in mind that back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, moving every day or two was the norm. Think set up and break down *every day* for a week or more instead of just once. The introduction of “cluster shows” and large events in one place was designed to actually make life easier for exhibitors.

Kennel Club Service to the Community?

While it certainly has done that, I do wonder if at some point we’ve lost the opportunity to serve local communities and for the public outreach that was created when the “dog show came to town.” But, that’s another topic for another day.

I’m not interested in dissecting the inner workings of a particular club. But I think *everyone* needs to hear this story. Because the fact is, this sad result is not particularly shocking in reality. The gut check here is that the average age of the membership in many, if not actually MOST, all breed kennel clubs is well north of 65. I’ll be 50 next year and I’m FAR and away the youngest active member of my all breed club. Chatting with other folks in other clubs brings the same conclusion across the board and across the country.

Kennel Clubs Puttin’ On The Show

Dog shows don’t just magically happen with a twitch of someone’s nose. Members of the hosting clubs work HARD, often all year long, to provide you and your friends and competitors with the *opportunity* to earn championship points, ranking points, big ribbons and bragging rights. These folks are without exception, volunteers. They handle exhibitor complaints, manage personality conflicts in their group, dedicate long hours at planning meetings, and at the show, for no better reason than to give back to the sport and their community. As this news proves, they don’t actually **have** to do that!

Eugene Kennel Club and Future of Kennel Clubs

When the Eugene Kennel Club news broke, I had a number of folks contact me looking for advice about joining a local club. How to go about it, what could they do being new to the sport, how hard was it, which club to join, like that. I also heard from club members around the country begging for more active members.

So, since this isn’t really match.com, I thought I’d put together a list of five tips for joining and succeeding in an all-breed club. AND five more for current club leadership about how to attract new members and *retain* and encourage more involvement from your existing membership. This is aimed at all-breed kennel clubs, but these are pretty common areas of conflict or concern in specialty clubs, performance clubs and pretty much anywhere two or more people join together to try and accomplish something worthwhile.

Joining an All Breed Club

WHY should I join? Because if you enjoy showing dogs. Because the only way that happens is if people do the work. And we’re running out of people to do the work! If you want to enjoy the benefits of other people’s labor, you need to pay it forward with some labor of your own. By the way, professional handler peeps, I’m talking to YOU too. If you can’t afford to miss one weekend a year you might need to rethink your business plan.

How to Join a Kennel Club

HOW do I go about it? Think about the dog shows near you. Think about the folks you’ve met at those shows. Is there even a kennel club in your town? Google it! Most of them have at minimum a social media or bare bones website. Find a handling class or an obedience class or the secretary’s name. Meet some of the members at the class or at the local dog show. Is there a club a bit further away that hosts a show you particularly like? Join them in building a great event. Any club I’ve ever encountered will invite guests. Go to the membership meeting and wait for it, *meet people*! Talk to folks, ask questions and offer up some of your enthusiasm or confusion! Offer to bring cookies to the next meeting. There will be an application process. It is generally relatively pro forma. I know there are clubs out there that are persnickety about who joins. Guess what. For each one of those, there are 20 clubs who are *desperate* for strong backs, committed faces and a chance to share the labor.

What Can I Do?

WHAT can *I* do? The All breed club isn’t just a dog show. And a dog show isn’t JUST a show chair or judges committee. All breed clubs need folks to help organize speakers and topics for meetings. They need secretaries and treasurers and board members. They need a legislative liaison, a community PR person, somebody to run Responsible Dog Owner days, parade participation and  ANY chance to reach out to the public. They need somebody to unlock the building for handling or obedience class or whatever it is. They need somebody to organize and restock the club trailer and take it places. There are literally dozens of jobs small and large that are often handled by a group of about 6-8 people (if they’re lucky). Show up and ask what you can do to help. Serve on a committee to learn about a particular area and do the grunt work. Just like learning how to show dogs, you rarely get to start at the top of the ladder! Shows need folks to be in charge of flowers and grounds maintenance and catalog sales and announcing and ring stewards and judges hospitality and trophies and parking and grooming and… You get the idea.

Where is the best kennel club to join?

If you are blessed with a variety of local options, join more than one club! Or visit with club members from each and get a feel for the vibe of the club. Choose the group that most closely meets your personality. Some clubs are relaxed, some are formal, some are lots of fun and some are very intense. Pick what works best for you. Or, take pity and choose a club that is desperately short handed.

When I get there, what should I do?

Work! Don’t start the conversation with this is how we need to change the world. The more you put in your time, fulfill the commitments you make, make friends with the other members, the more liable you are to earn respect and the opportunity to do more. If you have an idea for a special project, offer it up along with how YOU personally will do the work. And then, DO THE WORK! There is nothing more frustrating than someone who bails at the last minute.

Club Membership Recruitment and Retention

WHO should we “let in”? If you want my opinion, pretty much anybody with a dog! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Our future ability to own and show and breed dogs depends on our success right now on reaching JQ Public with an inclusive, welcoming, uplifting message about the truly great gifts of purebred dogs. Being secretive, jaded and hiding behind closed doors might or might not protect you from the attention of the AR extremists, but it certainly isn’t going to bring any more people into the world of purebred dog shows and events.

HOW do we encourage participation from new/inactive members? Give people a job and let them, for pete’s sake, DO it. Quit micromanaging everything. Obviously, provide support and resources, perhaps *gentle* guidance, but if someone is doing the job don’t nickel and dime them to death. One guaranteed way to lose active club members is to be unpleasant to someone who is *volunteering* to do a job!

WHEN is it time to “pass the torch”? The healthiest clubs I talked to share their positions regularly. And they continually “cross-train” their members on different positions, just like successful businesses do.

WHAT are the remedies or preventions for “burnout”? The above suggestions are a great place to start. Show appreciation to your most active members. Small gifts, tokens of gratitude, a simple standing ovation at a club meeting. Quit worrying that YOU aren’t getting the recognition and focus the attention on other people.

“WHY can’t we all just get along?” Wellll, on this one I wish I had better answers. Personality clashes, interpersonal competition, misunderstandings…. the list is as long as your arm. I’ve been a worker bee, a national club president and everything in between. There’s always “that one person”. There’s always “well, there was the time so and so did such and such to whomsoever”. The best solution I have ever found is direct, personal communication. In person is best, the telephone is next. Email, text and social media are almost guaranteed to create a disaster if they are your only or primary means of communication. Say I’m sorry. Say thank you. Ask for clarification of a statement before you take it in a negative way. It’s all pretty much basic level stuff. Why and how that so frequently gets lost in translation in dog clubs is simply beyond my ability to comprehend. We all have the same objective. My new favorite phrase is this… “Working together to push the elephant up the mountain.” It’s a great image and an even better goal.

If you want to learn more about different facets of putting on successful dog events and building strong clubs, you can follow up today’s episode by listening to episode 32 with Seattle Kennel Club’s Katie Campbell, episode 38 with the inimitable BettyAnne Stenmark of DelValle Kennel Club fame and episode 47 with Kim Meredith Cavanna hostess with the mostest of the always popular Woofstock. Links to these and more resources are in the show notes on the website.