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The American Kennel Club (AKC) is the world’s brand name authority on dogs. It has such credibility that a holding company licenses the AKC name to sell AKC-branded pet insurance, much the same way the AARP sells its endorsement to United Healthcare to brand its Medicare insurance.[i][ii] However, a three-month investigation by The Canine Review found that the go-to authority on dogs is designating thousands of breeders as “Breeders of Merit” without any prerequisite onsite inspection, even as the AKC assures the public on its website that it considers them “the most conscientious and most committed breeders.”[iii] An animal cruelty case in Mississippi five years ago involving an AKC Breeder of Merit offers the most egregious of the five examples that The Canine Review found of breeders who have enjoyed Breeder of Merit branding but clearly fall short of the AKC’s promise that they are the “most conscientious and most committed breeders.”[iv]
We consider [Breeders of Merit] the most conscientious and most committed breeders[v] ."
The AKC does not limit its promises of quality control to Breeders of Merit. On its website, there is a large section dedicated to the AKC's “Inspections and Compliance” department, describing how inspectors conduct oversight of the general AKC-registered population: "The AKC is the only purebred registry in the United States," the website says, "with an ongoing routine kennel inspection program. The AKC has a dedicated team of field agents..." However, the AKC's business model and simple math reveal that terms like "routine" and "thorough" are misleading. In fact, even if only the 11,000 Breeders of Merit were subject to inspections, "routine" and "thorough" would be a stretch, as The Canine Review's examination will show. Here's how the AKC's gold standard Breeder of Merit Program is described on its website:
"Here at the AKC, we believe in honoring responsible breeders who have gone above and beyond on health issues, temperament, and genetic screening, as well as to the individual care and placement of puppies in responsible homes. That's why we started the AKC Breeder of Merit Program: To give breeders a way to prove their dedication to preserving breed characteristics and producing healthy, well-socialized puppies. We consider them the most conscientious and most committed breeders."
The oldest, largest, and most prominent dog registry in the world, the AKC attracts about 2 million visitors every month to its online Marketplace.[vi] There, they can use the AKC’s “Puppy Finder” to search for AKC-registered puppies and breeders, including the approximately 11,000[viii] AKC “Breeders of Merit” who all supposedly meet the AKC's requirements.[ix] The AKC's credibility is such that, according to the AKC Board of Directors’ published minutes of a November 2016 meeting[x], “[AKC.org is] the number 1 content site among all dog sites.”[xi] However, The Canine Review has found that the world's authority on dogs is making promises on its website about its quality controls that it cannot possibly be keeping. For example, the AKC promises visitors to the Marketplace that all puppies listed "receive health care, good nutrition, socialization, and love from day one" because all breeders listed "are subject to routine kennel inspections....”[vii]). Yet the math behind the AKC's business model, explained in detail below, makes such quality controls impossible.
