“AKC agility events don’t allow unregistered dogs, unless they’ve recenlty changed that rule?”
Check out the AKC’s “ILP”/now called “Purebred Alternative” registrations.
http://www.akc.org/reg/ilpex.cfm
While the dogs cannot be bred or shown in conformation, they may qualify for all other AKC sanctioned events.
For your $35 [!] and two photos, you can “register” a dog who looks “enough like” a recognized breed.
From what I’ve heard, they’re quite liberal in their visual interpretation of purebred.
“Fancy breeder” is a back-handed snipe at all the people who devote their lives to a breed because, in the liberal mind, they are the people who are somehow, employing tortuous logic, responsible for all shelter dogs.
IMO, the people who are intentionally breeding “designer dogs” should be beaten with a stick.
When I was a teen, a woman near my house mass-bred “Cockapoos” and got insane sums for those poor dogs whose feet never touched grass, being quartered in what could only generously be called “chicken coops”.
The Cockapoo craze started the whole “WhateverPoo” madness and now there are hundreds of bizarre “breeds”.
The *only* good to come of that is mixing the tragic Pugs with something that actually has a functioning muzzle, allowing it to finally breathe normally.
OTOH, with a “Puggle”, you now have a dog who is not only stubborn and willful, it takes off after small animals when it gets the chance.
*sigh*
Yeah, I know about the ILP. I can handle that; the dogs are not allowed entry to conformation events, but can do the fun AKC events. I’ve seen enough rescue Shorthairs that you know they’re Shorthairs, but don’t know where they came from, and the ILP can encourage new owners to be active with their dog in AKC events. But this article makes it sound like any ol’ dog from the pound can compete in the new agility event at Westminster. The club maybe is trying to compete with the Eukanuba Classic, though only the top 6 ranked agility dogs in each breed are invited to attend the Classic. Used to be that only top ranked dogs were invited to compete in conformation, but they’ve now opened it to any dog that sends in an entry. That torques me off a bit. Especially after seeing the Shorthairs that were entered this past show. I guess this can be said for most breeds, but there is no worry that Shorthairs will have overangled front assemblies any time soon. Most that I saw don’t even have correctly angled fronts.
Oh yes, I happened upon a woman with what she called an “AussieDoodle” in the pet food store a few weeks ago. Coloring of an Australian Shepherd with the coat of a poodle. I just bit my tongue and got about my errands.