|
From: Dog In Review, Volume 3,
Issue 7, July 1999, by Bo Bengtson
The email address is info@dogsinreview.com and website is dogsinreview.com
Foreign
champions banned at shows in Japan
By Bo Bengtson, Editor Dogs in Review
Effective immediately, the Japan Kennel Club is prohibiting
imported dogs with foreign titles from participating in the
majority of its shows. The ban is expected to affect the lively
trade in imported champions, particularly from the U.S., which
make up a high percentage of the top winners at Japanese show.
Last year reportedly eight of the Top Ten show dogs in Japan
were AKC champions imported from the United States.
One reason given for the new regulation is that the JKC wishes
to encourage Japanese breeders to produce top quality home-bred
stock instead of, as has often been the case in the past, buy a
ready-made show dog from abroad.
(The American Kennel Club, at a time when British imports
seemed to monopolize the top awards in the U.S., instigated
awards limited to American-bred dogs, and at least one breed
club still limits entries at its national specialty show to U.S.
born dogs.)
Those hardest hit by the new regulation - apart from a handful
of exhibitors currently campaigning AKC champions for Top Dog
ratings in Japan - will be the Japanese dealers who import large
numbers of champions from various countries - primarily the
United States but also Canada, Australia, and to a lesser degree
Great Britain, Scandinavia and central Europe - for re-sale to
customers in Japan. With the lack of a common language and
sometimes complicated import regulations, it has long been
necessary for most Japanese dog fanciers to resort to a
middleman who can help with the practicalities when they wish to
import a dog from abroad.
Buying and selling purebred show dogs has become a lucrative
profession for a few dealers; one company lists imported dogs
for sale in several pages of advertisements every month in the
Japanese press.
Responsible breeders who want to know where their dogs end up
prefer to deal with the buyer directly. In recent years, better
communication with overseas dog fanciers has led to a greater
number of one-on-one relationships between buyer and seller,
with satisfactory results for all concerned.
The biggest dog show this year in Japan, the Japan Kennel Club's
50th anniversary FCI Asian International Dog Show, held in Tokyo
on March 27-28, is one of the few shows where imported champions
can participate. Over 200 AKC champions were entered, and one of
them, the Pembroke Welsh Corgi, Am. & Jap. Ch. Lorjen It's A
Guy Thing, now owned by Norimoto Murase, won Best in Show under
international all-rounder judge Rainer Vuorinen from Finland.
See also report in DR May issue, p.58, and photographs in this
issue, courtesy of Mari Nakashima.
(Photos not included in this reprint)
|
