GIVING BACK
The Nebraska KC Welcomes
New People and Breeds
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were especially lucrative. “We drew a huge amount of peohose of us “in dogs” are not getting any younger. Mayple to those barn hunts so that the club made a substantial
be this is why we spend so much time longing for
amount of money to help support it,” says Bradbury. Boldays gone by. However, if dog clubs are to survive
stered by this progress, the board of directors eventually
— and thrive — in the future, it’s essential that we conconsidered hosting a conformation show again — but not
sider every possibility when it comes to expanding interwithout some trepidation. “We haven’t
est in purebred dogs. In the American
marketed ourselves in so many years,”
Midwest, one small club is hoping to
broaden its membership by opening
Separate rings will be admits Bradbury, who understands
how quickly fanciers can forget about
the door to its 2017 conformation
offered on Friday for
a club. “So we needed to figure out a
show to all 62 breeds currently part of
those clubs wishing
way to market our show so we could
AKC’s Foundation Stock Service and
get enough entries.”
Miscellaneous Class.
to hold independent
Putting the Show on Hold
The Grand Basset
Griffon Vendéen
is one of 62
Miscellaneous
and Foundation
Stock Service
breeds invited
to attend next
year’s Nebraska
Kennel Club dog
show.
“We used to have 50 or 60 members,”
says Sheryl Lynn Bradbury, Show Chair
of the Nebraska Kennel Club. “We have 12 members today,”
she notes of the small group of fanciers working hard to
make next year’s event a success. With limited resources, this
once-thriving club made the tough decision several years ago
to suspend its annual conformation show. “We sat down and
did some strategizing and decided that for the next few years
we would not hold any more dog shows,” reports Bradbury,
who works in marketing and sales. “Otherwise we would be
in financial ruin.”
So with its show on hold indefinitely, the
club’s board made the decision to look at the
organization as a business. “We would [only]
do activities that would
raise money for the
club through community events on behalf of
purebred dogs,” Bradbury adds. For the past
few years, the club has
hosted Tracking Tests,
Obedience and Rally
Trials, Herding Trials
and Responsible Dog
Owner Days that were
largely successful as
community outreach
events. Several Barn
Hunts, hosted jointly with another club,
Embracing Rare Breeds
Bradbury is a Grand Basset Griffon
Vendéen breeder who has traveled extensively competing with her dogs. “I found that the Open
Shows seem to draw a large crowd of the FSS and Miscellaneous breeds,” she says. “So we put together a proposal
for all the FSS and Miscellaneous breed clubs offering them
space to hold their National.” With support from the board,
the club sent an invitation to each parent club offering a
place to hold its show next year. “The response has been
very positive,” says Bradbury. “Within the first week we had
two clubs commit to having their National at our show.” Six
other clubs had expressed interest by mid-July.
As Bradbury explains, “Most FSS and Miscellaneous clubs
do not have the funds to hold Nationals, so what we have
to offer is worth a lot to small clubs.” With larger-than-average entries anticipated in many of the uncommon breeds,
the club could once again find itself on firm financial footing.
“More importantly, this is an opportunity to make [our show]
a judges education event,” she says. “If we can draw enough
FSS and Miscellaneous breeds to commit to coming to this
show in 2017, we can market ourselves to judges looking to
get more breeds and learn about the FSS and Miscellaneous
breeds.” Bradbury has also reached out to AKC’s FSS division
and notes they are “very excited” about the plans being made.
Seeing a Positive Future
With interest in its conformation show on the rise, the Nebraska Kennel Club was faced with one very big problem:
finding a suitable show site. “The Board of Directors was
challenged to find a facility that wouldn’t break the bank,”
says Bradbury.
CONTINUED ON PAGE 108
COURTESY SHERYL BRADBURY
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