American Coton Club: USACTC's CHUTZPAH

Friday, April 15, 2011

USACTC's CHUTZPAH

11:00 AM | Posted by American Coton Club

NEWS

USACTC's CHUTZPAH

Robert Jay Russell, Ph.D.,

Coton de Tulear Club of America President,

www.cotonclub.org

CotonNews@aol.com

(607) 693-2828

April 14, 2011.

Chutzpah |ˈhoŏtspə; ˈ kh oŏtspə; -spä| (also chutzpa or hutzpah or hutzpa)

noun informal. Shameless audacity; impudence.

ORIGIN late 19th cent.: Yiddish, from Aramaic ḥu ṣpā.

Following the AKC's rejection of ACTA and its choice of the USACTC for its frontal show organization, the USACTC Board brazenly announced:

"Dear USACTC members,
Today we were informed by the AKC, that the USACTC has been chosen to be the Parent Club for AKC. We have attached a copy of the letter. While we understand many of the challenges that face us in the years to come, we are pleased that the Coton de Tulear will now have a strong, single voice to speak for them.
We are in the process of establishing a Code of Ethics for all of our members and will continue to be strong in ourcommitment to work against puppy mills and commercial breeders. We hope that as an AKC Parent Club our voice will be loud and clear on this subject with AKC as well as with the public.
Many new USACTC committees will be formed in the upcoming months to work for the benefit of the Coton de Tulear. We hope that you will consider helping the USACTC protect and work for the breed that we all love so very much.Very truly yours,
Ruth Weidrick andThe USACTC Board Members"

Dr. Russell continues:

Hilarious chutzpah on their part to state that the USACTC is now the "strong, single voice" that speaks for Cotons. Literally thousands more Coton owners and breeders oppose the USACTC and the AKC than support this move, so they err tremendously in proclaiming themselves the sole spokespeople for the breed. The CTCA, now in its 35^th year, is vastly larger than their show club and we predate their appearance on the Coton scene by more than 17 years. Anyone who knows anything about the CTCA knows that we have never been silent in our support of the breed that we introduced to the Western world from their homeland of Madagascar in 1974.

If that weren't a large enough misstatement, Ms. Weidrick goes on to compound her chutzpah by stating that the USACTC will "work against puppy mills and commercial breeders."

She appears completely unaware that the AKC is the largest registrar of puppy mill dogs in the world, that it is stated policy of the AKC to promote their "Large Scale Breeders Program," that AKC officials attend and help puppy auctions in the mid-West, and that the AKC supports and endorses the Hunte Corporation, the largest wholesale distributor of commercially produced puppies in the world. The AKC management has never, does not now and obviously will not in the future tolerate any parent club's challenge to their revenue sources.

The USACTC no longer has a Coton registry. They have no say over what dogs the AKC will register as "AKC Cotons de Tulear." Ms. Weidrick's Cotons will join puppy mill bred, pet shop sold Cotons as complete equals in the exact same AKC registry database. Their Coton in the show ring will be indistinguishable from an AKC Coton languishing in a pet shop somewhere. USACTC breeders will produce the same pups as any AKC Coton breeder will.

We in the CTCA feel very, very sorry for the fate of these dogs. And we are thankful that none of our Cotons will be in that unenviable place.

Ms. Weidrick is likely well aware that the mCTCA will remain a "strong voice" in support of the Madagascar Coton de Tulear breed and that unlike her AKC-USACTC, we will be able to maintain a registry, enforce our strict Code of Ethics and health testing for all our breeders and owners, and of course we'll continue to "work against puppy mills and commercial breeders."

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