What is going on, everybody? Welcome to the Tack Box Podcast. We're back. It's Tuesday. We're recording for our Wednesday delivery of the podcast episode 70. And if you guys follow along with Dale uh on social media, you saw him post yesterday, I believe it was, that what we're talking about in this episode of the podcast. So today we're talking about some new rules and regulations that AKC dropped, the upright, uproar, outrage, craziness that everybody's freaking out about with this new policy. But before we dive in and we break the policy down and we talk about it, let's check in over there with Dale, who's fresh back from judging in North Carolina. How did that go for you, Dale? Okay, we're starting over again because I don't know. We are. All right, here we go.
SPEAKER_01You were froze like this.
SPEAKER_00Wonderful. Yeah, you got a nice view then. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Well, it's already recording, so I'm just going to jump in and we're just going to hope it works this time. What is going on, everybody? Welcome to the Tack Box Podcast. It is Tuesday, July 21st, and we're here recording episode 70 of the podcast. And if you follow along with Dale on social media, over the last day or so, you saw him posting what we're going to talk about, and we're going to dive deep. We're going to talk through it. We're going to tell you what it means for you, how dog shows may or may not be changing, what the policy's been and how it is. But before we jump into talking about the policy and what is going on with it and what AKC announced last week, we're going to check in with Dale over here because he was just uh judging in North Carolina. I know he's uh you got to do a national owner handle series, like special event double point uh type of thing. So how did that go for you, Dale? My gosh, that was great.
SPEAKER_01They had that the that National Owner Handlers series. They really knocked it out of the park. They made that a great event. They awesome participation, quality was high, competition was keen, and some really good dogs and some really good owner handlers. So it was a it was a pretty pretty awesome thing. But it was just a one-day show for me. I was in and out, but it was a 12-hour day of of nonstop dog show. So I was I was ready to get back home by by the end of that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's a long freaking day. Yeah, I was like judging. That's a long morning when super late at night. Ooh, yeah, that's a long judging process for sure. Uh huh. Let me tell you. Yeah. Yeah. But you made it back, everything is good, now you're home for a couple weeks.
SPEAKER_01Well, I wouldn't really say that. I've got a a one-day show over in Longview, and kind of that's gonna be kind of a fun one. And then the uh but more hot more at home time, which is good because we're in the middle of our super hot summer heat wave, and I I don't like to, you know, even though we make all sorts of provisions for that kind of thing, it's still, yeah, I still always, you know, sweat it out that something could go wrong while while we're traveling.
SPEAKER_00Well, and that's the thing, and that's part of what we're gonna talk about today, but we have some firsthand experience with that too, because you know, it's like my air conditioner went out a couple days ago, and and thankfully we have two. We have a, you know, our house runs off of two ACs, so when one goes out, we we we don't die, you know, and it's so we got a backup plan in place and and it worked, and we had somebody on speed dial to fix it, but you know, still I'm every couple hours running out to the kennel, making sure everything's running out there good. If I'm not spending ample time out there, just make sure dogs are doing good, uh, which really leads us into what we're talking about today was AKC's new unattended, unattended uh what is it, dogs, animals left unattended in vehicles at dog shows policy. So let's talk about that a little bit.
SPEAKER_01Well, uh so there was a um a terrible accident this this past month over at the Oklahoma City shows. An exhibitor traveling by herself with a inexperience with a new box truck generator air conditioning combo, and uh she had a malfunction and she thought her dogs were fine, and she was in the building for a few hours and came back to find that the the uh elect um her power had gone off to her truck and her dogs had perished. It was very sad. And that um, you know, it was, you know, I think everybody the when it's sad and uh tragic and avoidable, it tends to generate feelings of what can we do to stop this from happening? And and then, of course, then it gets onto social media and it takes another life of its own, and we start you know demanding accountability. You know, who is gonna be there? Uh what what how is this even possible? Can this happen today? That kind of a thing. And so I think in response to the overwhelming uh outcry, is that the is that a good thing, you know, of the posts of people who were upset about the loss of those dogs, you know, the AKCs for you know did their immediate directive, you know, stating that you know there will be no unattended dogs at uh in the uh camping RV showground events, and if and the outlining what the uh the penalties would be for such thing. So that that's what we've seen posted, and we've seen the veritable shitstorm. I don't think there's a better word to describe it than that, of responses and uh and you know, people talking about that of how this was going to affect them and their participation in dog shows and the events and so forth. Would that be a pretty accurate overview?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think so. I think that probably was uh you know, a pretty accurate overview, you know, it's like something happens, you know, people have feelings and they outcry, you know, for something to change. So then the governing body of whatever this might be puts a policy into place, which then creates another outcry from everybody who didn't want the policy, you know, in place, you know, and ever and even the people that did want something to change now is like, well, something actually happened, and oh man, now this affects me, you know. So then it comes back to like I wanted something to happen because you know this poor incident happened and I feel really bad, and these people should be punished and reprimanded. So then we create a policy to do that, but now that affects me, so now I'm pissed off about that. Yeah, but it sums it up. Yep, there you go.
SPEAKER_01Summed up pretty much in a nutshell. So, so you know, the uh the you know, the kicker is I I think we have to go back historically speaking a little bit and look at these events and how they have changed in the last quarter century, in the last 25 years, shows have changed. Where you know, 20 in 2020, when we did a hundred shows with our the dog we specialty ourselves, it was weekends, a couple of one-day shows, you know, weekends, maybe one or two three-day shows. Now it's not uncommon for there to be uh, you know, a circuit of four or five days, a one-day downtime, and then another four or five days. You might show in the same location for different clubs at the same venue, you could do eight to ten days of shows. And in that uh period of time, you might show those your your dogs, you know, in specialties and group events and owner handled and the all-breed events, and I mean you can cram a lot of that in there. But so it's kind of changed things where you know, when it'd be like, hey, we're gonna get off from work on Friday, you know, leave out, go to the show, show Saturday, show Sunday, head back home Sunday night. Okay, that would be, you know, so your dogs were really only left alone Saturday, and so you'd have a person come in on Saturday or Sunday morning or whatever, and they could go. But now we're talking about being gone 10, 12 days, and you might do that several times a month, and that and that is absolutely available. These are these are circuits and clusters and all that, so people are don't have the as much it's not having a person come in three or four days in in the month to take care of your dogs while you're gone. You're talking about being gone, you know, all but three or four days in a month. So people are bringing animals with them, I think at a higher rate than ever before, traveling with them to these venues further than they've ever gone before, because they can go there and they can get a lot of shows in one time. So if you're going for a ranking or a title of this or that or a profession, you can go pull drop down and camp somewhere. As we had have talked about in other podcasts, taking dogs to hotel rooms is at an all-time difficult heart, you know, hardship, you know, to be able to uh you know, you know, go to the show and then take your dogs back to the hotel. That that can that's that's that's hard now. It's pricey, it's hard, and uh you know, and so people are like turning to RV life, you know, box trucks, campers and so forth to you know to to haul their haul these dogs with.
SPEAKER_00Wouldn't you say that's pretty much like you know I yeah, and I also think, you know, it's like you know, a lot of people are probably gonna hate this and I might get some flack for this, but you know, it's like I think we've gotten really lazy with it too, and we try to rely on on our technology, right? So like 80s, 90s, you know, it's like if we people still traveled with their dogs, we just checked on them, we set up fans, we made sure that they were they were good. Now we have these temperature monitors, we have these generators with ACs, and we almost get overconfident because of the technology that we have, that it's like instead of checking on our dog every hour to make sure that they're alive and and well and everything's functioning, it's like, well, I get an alert on my phone if something doesn't happen. So since I haven't got an alert, everything must be good, you know, and I think we kind of get that mindset and we get a little lazy with it and we're not we're we're relying too much on the technology. And so when technology it fails hard, right? Yeah, overly comfortable, you know. So it's like I think that plays a part into it too. And that happens that happens with, you know, in a lot of aspects of things is we just get overly, you know, we even do that with our homes too. It's like, well, we got cameras and we got these smart locks and you know, this all this device information. And it's like, yeah, until it doesn't work, you know, and it doesn't always function properly.
SPEAKER_01So well, as we are on this very episode.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. Because technology failed, so now here we are recording this podcast again, you know, for the second time. You know, and and I think you know, AKC gets a lot of slack as as a governing body type of, you know, for all these shows and and things. And it's like, you know, at the end of the day, you know, if if dogs die at a dog show, AKC gets the the repercussions, right? They get all the news outlets, they get all this stuff coming to them, you know, all the purebred dog haters, all the anti-breeders, they're all going to AKC. So AKC has to implement something, I guess for lack of better words, to protect their own ass and put it back on to the people that are actually the caretakers of these animals that should have the responsibility. It's our responsibility to protect our animals when we take them to a show, right? So that's kind of what this policy is doing, right? Is is kind of putting the the accountability back on the dog owners.
SPEAKER_01They're putting the accountability and uh and some consequence to dropping that, the dropping ball in that. So, like when we did do shows where we would have to work work out of a vehicle for lack of better plant uh terms, Jane's mom would come along with us and be reading her Bible and knitting, and uh, you know, have we had a person there watching the dogs while we were off showing the dogs and we were coming back and trading them out and all that. Uh you know, it was, you know, there wasn't a temperature monitor alert. There was Connie. And uh that that was how that's how we did it back then. But I think that I think part of it is there is a shared responsibility. So AKC is sanctioning these events. So they do have a responsibility as the as the sanctioning body for these events to have them be safe for the exhibits and the exhibitors. You know, just the same way whenever a racehorse gets killed on the track, you know, that gets a lot of bad press for the racing commission. You know, they're good, they're they're like, who's uh doing this? You know, da-da-da-da. So when an accident happens at a dog show, then it's like, oh, animals were lost and it was da-da-da-da, and it was all for ribbons, and they don't care and blah, blah, blah. So there is that. And there is a responsibility, just like when you are hosting an event, the club's hosting these events. Do they have safe places for these dogs to stay? If they're if they're having a summer event, is there shade? Is there water available? Is there is there access? I mean, can these dogs be housed here safely? If it's not, maybe we need a different date. Maybe we need a different, you know. I mean, there's a little bit of a common sense factor, you know. I mean, just the same way the superintendents, the b the the breaky cephalic dogs, they schedule them early in the day at the judging so they can get them back out of there. We don't want the we don't want the bulldogs, you know, and the and the and the Japanese chin out and the at one o'clock sun. All of these things are just common sense. But where does this blame the the blame game stop and uh you know and where does threats uh threatening people with consequences but instead which I mean you should know consequences, ignorance is no excuses of ignorance of the law is not an adequate defense. But what are some solutions that we can offer to help people do better and actually uh stop this uh stop these things these occurrences from happening, you know, because that's that's really what we're that's really what we need. I mean, we got plenty enough blame. There's plenty of blame, you know, and we can we can punish them some more, but you know, let's kind of keep it in reality as to what can happen, what will happen, and then and then kind of work within that. You know, what are some of your thoughts as far what things would make it a little safer for the for the shows in the summertime?
SPEAKER_00I think first of all, you just have to have common sense and you gotta realize what you're doing. You know, like if you're you know, on multiple ass aspects, you know, I think clubs in general probably like if you're a club that's in Texas and you want to hold a show in July, maybe you should rethink the date of your show. Because it's gonna be 90s and 100 degrees. You know, maybe you should be looking at like February for the date of your show. So like there's an aspect that could the club itself and you know could could try to control with it too. Like, let's make sure that when we're holding our show, the the weather is permitting. Also the venue, you know, again, if you're if you're in, you know, say say you're up north and it's winter and you have a show in January, probably should be inside in a temperature controlled building so the dogs don't frickin' freeze, you know. And it goes both ways with heat and cold. I've been to, you know, I've gone to a show in Minneapolis in January, whereas minus five outside, not you know, same thing can happen there. Your dogs can freeze, you know, as as you know, the same way they can die of heat. So it's kind of, you know, I think the clubs maybe look at their dates a little bit and try to, you know, go around with that. I don't think anywhere in this AKC was saying not use your technology. We have so much technology to help control our dogs, and you would think in 2026 bringing somebody with to help watch your dogs would be way easier than when you did it in the early 2000s. I mean, so many people are working from home now. It's like people can travel with you and still work, you know, from there. You know, so like there's there's so many different aspects of it that you can do. I think a lot of times we also think that technology is so great and AC and generators are so great when a good old traditional shade and a fan would be sufficient in a lot of things, but we don't necessarily do that because we're relying on the AC and the generator instead of just shades and a fan. So can we park in different spots? Is there, you know, I've been to multiple shows, and every show I've ever been to, there's plenty of room to bring your dogs in, even in free grooming, you know, and just spots to house them in under shade. You know, it's like you they don't have to sit out in a vehicle or sit in the sun. There's plenty of shaded areas, it seems like, you know, do you notice the same thing? Absolutely. And and I did, because on chat GPT, I got a couple of little fun facts.
SPEAKER_01And it's at 75 degrees out. 75 degrees out, a passenger car that you're you're in in under 30 minutes, it will be a hundred degrees in your car. In under 30 minutes, the passenger car. In 45 to 60 minutes in your motorhome, at that same 75 degrees, it's gonna be 90 degrees. So you have a little more room, wiggle room with your RV than you do in your passenger car. At 85 degrees outside, it will be it will reach 100 degrees in 10 minutes in your car. Wow. So, I mean, when we're talking about leaving them in the car and going and checking on them at 10 minutes, 100 degrees, and that 85 degrees, it's gonna take 30 minutes to hit 100 degrees in that motorhome. Still not very long. At 95 degrees, your car is 120 degrees in 30 minutes, and your motorhome is 110 to 120 in 45 minutes. So, I mean, kind of like the the takeaway on that was cars heat up faster because of smaller air volume and the insulation. Motorhomes can be a little, can be take a little longer, but still lethal in an hour. You know, windows cracking and and and stuff is not it's not circulating of air, you know. So that that's not going to be that's just not not a really a viable cause. I kind of think that while while we we definitely know that these events are gonna happen, and while we're showing dogs in a lot of the same way they would have done in the 1800s, you know, shade and airflow and all that same kind of stuff that worked then still works now. But I think that maybe, you know, the American Kennel Club, well, I mean, I don't have a problem with them outlining penalties, and I don't mind them having a problem of giving everybody a good shaking of the finger, but let's take it one step more. So maybe if you're going to buy, uh maybe we need to go ahead and have an online course that people can pay for. And if you want to get an RV parking spot, you have to be current on this. And I mean, maybe these online course could talk about some of these fun facts. You know, I mean, just some stuff about what it's gonna take, you know, what are the temperatures, how long this is gonna take, how we need to properly pack our these dogs. I mean, I think that we could go and take uh instead of like, and so I mean, punishment's great. Everybody loves a hanging. If they I always said if they would do a hanging 10 minutes after Best and Show, everybody would hang around for it work for the Coliseum, it worked for now. But why not take this opportunity and some of these tragic losses and instead make this be an education process? And maybe make it where we go take an online course and say, it's gonna heat up this fast, this fast, this fast. When you're packing your car, you know, what kind of dog do you have? What kind of, you know, what kind is this, is this even vertical? Viable for you to travel with. I mean, I've had I've seen people show up at dog shows with dogs packed in vehicles, and man, not enough airflow. Not enough airflow. Don't you can't put your suitcase in front of the crate. You know, I remember one time I had a handler bring back a French bulldog for me from a show, and they drove from the north to the south, and it took 10 minutes of unpacking before we could get to my dog's crate. And as that was happening, I was so anxious because I thought, it's gonna be dead. You know, it's going to be that dog will, you know, I mean, how could that dog have possibly it was all right, it was fine. I was, you know, but you know, I think we need to talk about this. Like, this is how this is how we need to travel with dogs. This is what, you know, if you're taking off and you're traveling across country, you know, then then maybe you need to have ice packs, maybe you need to have water available. You need to have a plan in place that if your car overheats or breaks down, what are you gonna do with these dogs? Because if you're traveling by yourself or whatever, and you've got 25 dogs in a van, then and you have a problem, what are you gonna do exactly? How are you going to keep them alive? How are you going to get through the situation?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they're not seeing that with this policy because what they're what they're seeing is unattended, you know, animals left unattended in vehicles at the dog show, and they're thinking, like, well, how am I going to show my dog? You know, I can't I'm not gonna be able to show my dog this and that and that. And it's like, okay, so think about the other aspect of this. You can have issues on the way to the show traveling, you know. So if you're traveling alone with 10 dogs, five dogs, and you break down and it's 105 degrees outside, and you don't have a backup plan in place, those dogs probably are going to die. And you know, like it's more than likely going to happen. You know, so it's like that's that's no different than leaving them unattended at a show. Like you've got to have a plan in place for for all of that. And I know even living in Texas or southern Oklahoma, you know, and this heat that we have, I know that you have a plan in place if if your AC went out in your in the kennel via generator, other, you know, other things. I have a generator, you know, I installed a generator plug. So if the AC goes out, I can put a generator on and still do it. But there's also more than that, because that's plan A. That's like that's like plan B. What's plan C? Well, I got enough crates to be able to bring every single dog into my house in a crate and keep them in the house. As I know, you have the same type of scenario. Okay. What's plan D? You know, this is having more than one backup plan in place. And it's the same aspect with the dog shows. We're getting hung up on this new policy about leaving dogs in our vehicles with AC on at dog shows, but are we thinking about the time to get to the dog show and home from the dog show and what happens if our vehicles break down? That's just as bad as leaving them unattended at a show while we're in the show ring, right?
SPEAKER_01It's just the same. It's, you know, I mean, I yeah, I that's exactly the point of this, I think that we're trying to make today. It's not even just, okay, that we had some bad experiences happen, we've lost them, and it's gotten very publicized, and it's been going on for a long time. It's just now with everything getting amplified, and I think we want need to stay away from knee-jerk reactions. And when because whenever you just like go ahead and do something without thinking about just as a response to a horrible thing, you know, we had a uh a terrible thing happen involving an AKC judge and uh pedophilia charges. And then next thing you know, well, all right, we're all taking awareness classes so where we can identify this and how to this and this, and we're going to do, we're gonna have junior showmanship's gonna be monitored more closely, and we're gonna have this, we're gonna have that. We we had a response, you know, but it wasn't just if you if this is da-da-da-da, there's gonna be punishment. We did we took steps to work towards preventing this from happening and how and how to keep our situation safe. So I think that what really what we need to do with with these with this tragic last accident that's happened is we need to talk about, have a have a dialogue and say, how can we keep these animals safer? How are we going with today's events and people bringing more animals with them? You know, how are we gonna keep them safer? Should we be having people, should we have to have like a certification every year where we're gonna have like, you know, if you're gonna get, if you're gonna bring motor homes and you're gonna bring such and such on there, you're gonna need to take these courses. If you're gonna be an agent and you're gonna have large numbers of dogs, because generally speaking, I mean, you know, people with one or two dogs that's just like their pets, they are usually a little bit more aware, but you know, if you're gonna have a number of dogs in your care, you may need to have these emergency plans in place. You know, I I know like with our with our AKC inspection of our of our kennel, they want we have an emergency preparedness list, we have fire extinguishers, we have veterinarian contacts, we have all of these emergency contracts, contacts in place that should something awful happen, we've got a plan to take care of our dogs so we're not like just faking it. So I think that there needs to be education for summer travel. There needs to be education about taking care of dogs at the show in the summer. I mean, and kind of kind of like let's have that discussion. Let's see if we can, as a community, learn from this. Let's see if we can go ahead and make these events safer and really not have people not know how fast, how hot, how dangerous. And then maybe we need to look at the events as to what kind of facilities are being offered at which at which shows at what time of year? I mean, is this is this a viable thing? Can we have outdoor shows in in July and August? Is that is that a good idea? I mean, can that happen? You know, I mean, that kind of a thing. I mean, it's like I I see this as being an opportunity for more than just ass covering and punishment. We could learn, maybe offer some courses, maybe a canine college course, maybe a professional handler's course, maybe an exhibitor's course, maybe the NOHS could have. We can talk about this where we can be a little bit more knowledgeable, a little bit more aware, so we can stay ahead of these things and maybe stop some of these very senseless, you know, tragic things from happening.
SPEAKER_00Maybe there's even some sort of like dog per human being type of limit, maybe, you know, only three or four dogs per human being. So, I mean, if you're an agent and it's like you're, you know, showing eight dogs, like you're gonna have to have three helpers, you know, something along those lines of like that, to where it's like only, you know, yeah. Imagine one person trying to go to a dog show and taking six, seven dogs with them. Like that's hard on its own. And then you throw in outside factors like temperature and in keeping them all, you know, regulated like that. Like, like you said, I think there's an opportunity to learn here and just think about the whole process in general of of showing. Like, maybe I saw some people talking about it as like maybe there shouldn't be any dog shows between July and August, and that should be just the off-season. And it's like initially my knee-jerk reaction was, ooh, I don't like that because I like dog shows and I want to go show dogs, and I don't like off-season, you know. Like, I want to be able to go to a dog show. But maybe, maybe there does need to be a policy in place of, you know, no outside dog shows in July and August. You know, we can do indoor and AC controlled bit environments, you know, but maybe nothing outdoors. And it doesn't matter if it's north or south or not, because like we talked about at the beginning of the podcast, like South Dakota, still way up north, over 100 degrees right now, you know, Texas, way down south, over 100 degrees right now. You can't control that environment, you know. So maybe that's something to take a look at. But, you know, what did you see? Did you see anything at the show this weekend as like the first show since this policy has been in place? Because one of the questions I kind of can't thought of was like, who's policing this? Like, are AKC reps gonna be at these shows trying to police this? Is it up to the the Kennel Club to police this? Or is AKC not even really asking us to police it? Because I I didn't see anywhere where I feel like it was supposed to be policed, but what did you see?
SPEAKER_01As with most of the rules, they really don't. I don't know if there's an active code enforcement going on. Like, I don't know if there's like a a code enforcement of animals being left, you know, and people checking for that. I think it's more of the policy was more like if you do this and you get caught, this is but this. So I don't know what exactly I you know, we had talked about club members going around on golf carts, making sure power stayed on in parking areas and and that kind of a thing. You know, I did have somebody that mentioned something kind of interesting to me, um, and I don't know how well it would work or how even viable it is, but you know, we talked about like the number of shows there are now, like the immense number of dog shows. And at some point, is it really that great for the dogs to be shown that many times? And does it really even does it kind of throw the uh the rankings to be like, well, who can go to the most? That's gonna be your number one. I'm maybe if there was like a set number of shows that like the rankings are gonna be based on this many shows, you know, whatever that number is. There's a this many shows. So, you know, going to more shows than that is not adding to your rankings. So, you know, it that's just only your own narcissistic need there at that point. But I mean, should how many times do you want to show a dog? I've I see people showing the same dog, you know, 10, 12, 15 times in like one little, it's like, wow, that's a lot. That's a lot. They're really putting that putting that animal through its paces over and over and over and over again. And yeah, I kind of I kind of wonder, is that a great thing? I mean, and I've heard I've heard people even say things like junior showmanship should only be done on the weekends, because you know, except in the summer months, you know, when kids would be out of school, we shouldn't be encouraging delinquency and you know, blah, blah, blah. And you said, I was like, oh, well, they're homeschooling. Well, is that really, you know, it's like, how many shows should they really go? How many shows do you at what point is it too many? What point can it go too far? And and those are some just some interesting food for thought as to, you know, is that really is that really a very good indicator? And are we competing away quality of life, you know, for the animals and even the participants because they might be too obsessed to make good decisions? I I I don't know. That that's that's that's that's above my pay grade. But but I I do think as though the same way we have kennel club, uh, kennel inspections, and we they have handler certification, and they have club sanctioning, and now they even have the uh steward of light where they're talking about abuse type things certification that the judges go through. Why can't there be something in there for traveling with animals? What that looks like. You know, these numbers here, which I mean, as much as as long as I've lived in the south for over 40 years, those numbers kind of kind of chilling to me. I'm thinking 75 degrees, that's not that almighty hot. And then, but in that car over 100 degrees and under 30 minutes, I'm like, that's fast. That's fast. I mean, that's fast, and people think, oh, well, I'm traveling by myself and I'm gonna stop and run in and go to the bathroom and go, you know. So I mean, are you leaving your car running? You know, you know, I I think that there's there's some some actual, there's some good conversation to have there. Like, what is safe?
SPEAKER_00And how far how much how much you know, also for the policy, like what qualifies as a vehicle? Because, you know, as like you you kind of think, you know, as like leaving them in my in my car, but you know, the other aspect of it is like a lot of these big rigs and these RVs, you know, tons of RVs at shows, and they can plug right into power, you know. So now it's almost like it's a kennel building that's got power to it, it just has wheels. Does that qualify as a vehicle? You know, is like where does that line get drawn of what's technically a vehicle? Like, what if I'm not using a generator, I'm actually plugging my whole RV into the outlet at the show. You know, does that still qualify as a vehicle or am I now a stationary building?
SPEAKER_01Well, and so the same way, and this is where this is where things can kind of get off into the weeds. Like when there's a law passed or a rule passed and it says something about dogs or animals or whatever, it doesn't say what kind of dogs. It doesn't say you can have you can have, you know, eight, eight dogs or this, that unless it's Japanese chin, and then you can have 30 of them. You know, it doesn't differentiate, you know, what kind of dog, it's just dogs. Any, it doesn't matter. So we're talking about vehicle. So are are are we talking are we talking about you know your 32-year-old Subaru? Are we talking about the the 96 Ford Oconal line van? Are we talking about box truck? Are we talking about are we talking about a full-on RV? Are we talking about toy hauler? These are all I think as though all you know, I mean, obviously they're not all the same, but the same rules are gonna have to apply because they're we're not gonna be able to sit there and go, well, that's a really, you know, that you know, that you know, that's a 96 bounder. Yeah, yeah, no, don't don't leave your animals off of that. You know, I mean, that kind of thing. I mean, it's like we have to kind of like paint with a broad brush, but I think what we can do is like the shows should have to should we we the shows should be able to say these are what we can do where we can house dogs safely, and this is we can this is our creating area and this is such and such. And you know, because when we're talking about plugging in these, plugging in these RVs, well we're at campgrounds. That some of them were some of them are like fairgrounds that were built during World War II. And uh and you're just plugging on in there with everybody else, and those those blow and break all the time. That's that doesn't that's not a it's not the same as being at home.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I I think that maybe that probably part of that is going to be, you know, having them be attended. Maybe the shows will have some sort of, you know, being attended type thing. We used to plug a light if we had like fans or or AC going and you know, on our our and so we'd like have your rig parked over there and you and you could look outside, see the light was on on your rig. You could see that the power was on, which meant the fans were going and meant the air conditioning was hopefully blowing. Um but you know what bottom line is, you know, when you're betting on that, when that's everything, that's all or nothing. And if it goes off, this is how long you got, folks. Not very damn long. To to do something pretty quick before before before you start losing animals.
SPEAKER_00And so so one thing I saw, you know, with shows this weekend is I saw some people talking about, yeah, our our our kennel club at this show was walking around and you know, volunteers were enforcing the policy and they were doing this and that, and you know, I kind of got to thinking it was like, well, it a lot of the kennel clubs don't have enough volunteers barely to run the show, much less be patrolling parking lots. And so then it got me to thinking, like, nowhere did I see in the policy that if you do leave them unattended, you know, it's kind of like you said earlier, it's like policies are put in place and it's like they're there. Uh, you know, choose to follow them or not, you're probably not gonna get in trouble unless you something tragic happens and you didn't follow the rules, now you're gonna get busted. So is this something where it's like if you choose to leave your dog unattended for 15 minutes while you go run fast cat, somebody sees that you walked away from your vehicle to go take a leak or to go run fast cat, something for 10 or 15 minutes, can they bench trial you now because you walked away for 15 minutes? Or is that not part of the policy?
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes, absolutely. Absolutely. If you leave your animal, if you look or so if you shut up the vehicle and walk away from it, then you are in violation. And if somebody sees you doing that, or if it gets noticed and it gets reported, then you you're busted. Yeah. The other thing is if if it if something goes wrong and they find out that you did it, then you did it knowing. Now you know. Now now you know, and I think that that's I think taking this moment to educate people and say, all right, if you have to go run fast cat and you brought and you have two dogs with you and you can't, you know, then maybe you need to park in the shade, leave your windows open, put uh get some shade cloth, get your water, all that, that that's all that's all good. You know. You know, the uh it's like whenever we travel, I see a lot of like these beautiful, beautiful crates that they have now. They're just like, you know, all we traveled with wire crates. Are they as safe in an accident? No, no, they are not. They are not as safe as those impact crates. But I could see in my rear view mirror every dog in the van. And I could see them, I could see their little crate fans blowing on them. I could see their little faces, you know, and I could see, and they were getting ventilation. It's like we always had brachhalic dogs, and it, you know, you may or may not be in an accident, but you for sure were gonna die of the heat. You know, the heat was a a unrelentless thing. So, you know, you're gonna have to take it out. It's it's just just kind of like it's kind of like drinking and driving. You can drink, you can drive. It's not like you can't. It's just if you get caught, you now you know. You know exactly how that's gonna go for you. And so sometimes the consequence might deter somebody. And so that's that's that's kind of there, maybe the consequence. But I think we could also do one step more. And I think we could offer education, I think we could offer options to people. And instead of just throwing up your hands and saying, This is how we do it, this is the only way I can know how. Well, you're not a stick of wood. You can learn more. You can you probably probably can do it better. You know, that's one thing I have to learn in a long time. I'm doing this. You can always do something better. There's always a better way. You can figure out, you know, you know, you can use make it make a plan, do it a little bit better.
SPEAKER_00I think a lot of times it's like we just got to stop making excuses and stop being lazy. You know, I saw I think one of the biggest things I saw out of all this was people complaining about like, well, I have waggle, and it tells me, you know, that the temperature inside my place and it sends me this, or I have this, or I have this, and it's like, you know, one of the things that somebody said or the thought of that was just kind of like, yeah, well, if you have a Tesla, it can drive itself and you can sleep while you drive. But when that technology fails and you get into a car wreck, you're still responsible. Like you're not gonna put it off on the Tesla now because it was my car was in self-driving mode and I was sleeping and it got in a wreck, so it's not my fault. It was it's Tesla's fault. No, it's still your fault. You you know, like you made the choice to put the car into, you know, you were drive, you were the driver of the vehicle, you know, so it's still your fault. And it's the same way here is like you're responsible for these dogs, whether you leave them alone and you'll you know, put your AC on and you're waggle and you are trying to monitor everything and something happens, like you're still responsible. And and and I think that's just kind of where we get is we want to point the fingers and blame everything else. And we have all the technology, but I had this technology, I had this, I had this, and it's not my fault. And it's like, well, responsibility. Your dogs, you're responsible.
SPEAKER_01I I don't know. I I don't want to bet my life on waggle. I mean, I'm sure it's great, I'm sure it's awesome, and I think it's a tool. But I don't think you I don't think you say, I'm gonna say it for sure. Like, just like we were talking about in you you've built your kennel in all the different ways and of the stuff. Like, I know like with our with our particular kennel, we had we had uh central air unit, but we also had we had auxiliary air conditioners because you know, should say something go wrong with the central unit, you had this. We also had ceiling fans, because in case you had this and this, you had that, you know. Then we also had you know had whole house generators put in that you know, so in case the power goes out, you know, and you're gone, those are gonna kick on instantly. So that's gonna keep everything going. You know, but you have all of these different things, like what different layers of how many hours is it gonna take for this to get to this to go to a critical point. How many of your dogs have access to leave the building if you have a problem or they all shut up and if it goes badly, it the clock starts ticking for them. You know, and that's really really and truly what what we need to what we really need to think about is you know, when we're traveling, distances, and this is something that AKC can help with, because we have some super experienced people that know a lot about it. And and we can share our experiences and we can we can tailor it to our breeds and and how how how you know if we break down the road, what's our what what are our options? Well, how can this happen? How can we take care of our animals safely? All of that, you know, and I mean it's it's more than just a punishment thing. I think it's a it's an education to him. And you know, the uh dog show people, you know, we we uh kind of look, we don't look with a very approving eye at the commercial pet trade where they do those auctions and they sell the dogs at auctions because we think that's seedy and trashy and not good. Well, say what you want to about those people. They suspend the auctions when it gets too hot. Because those people that you think are so beneath us are more attuned to animal care and saying, well, we don't want to take a chance of not you know of hauling these dogs in the heat and all that. Well, there you go, because that's just common sense. So let's let's have a little common sense at our facilities, our showgrounds, our policies, our education process, you know, and and kind of use this as kind of an opportunity to do more than just threaten and talk about bench trials. As much fun as that is.
SPEAKER_00Well, I think a lot of times policies like this are put into place, even just for like, you know, think about this. AKC could have put out, you know, we we had these tragic events. They could have put it together an email as a reminder, just just a reminder, you know, to not leave your dogs unattended in this hot weather. And 99% of people would have hit delete and went about their life and not done another thing. But you put a policy into place, and now we have to rethink, right? We have to like, oh, there's repercussions. So now we have to think about what we're actually doing. You know, so it's like they could send a reminder, but everybody's gonna delete it. So we create a policy, put a policy in place. Now we have to rethink a little bit of what it is. Does it really change a whole ton for a lot of people? Probably not. Probably not. Does it change a little bit for some people? Probably. It does, but it's all for the better and it's for the the safety of our animals, right? So I mean, I don't see a whole ton of change really.
SPEAKER_01Well, I mean, it's it's gonna be change for people that haven't that are not used to leaving their animals at home because they're gone so much now that they don't have that. They don't have that infrastructure of leaving some uh leaving animals at home taking care of them. And I'm not even saying that it was a great way of doing, but a lot of people back in the day that I knew, they would take off and take care of them on Friday, and they were on their own until they got back on Sunday. And that was and that was exhibitors and judges and everybody, like going off and just leaving them. Uh, it's not exactly a great plan either, but but you know, they might have actually been safer, you know, you know, higher, higher chance of surviving. But I think as though that now people are going to be traveling more, we're gonna be doing these longer events, they're going to bring more animals along with them. It's going to be uh uh, you know, professionals and owners are not going to be able to divide up and or go back home in between these events. So they need to they need to the the venues, the clubs, need to put a little thought into this. It's like these are where you can keep your animals, this is what you can do, this is such and such. If you want to enforce the unentered dog rule, then at your own peril, go ahead and do it because that's that's that's going to be a hard one on the events. But you know, I mean, if you want to enforce that, that's that's on you. It's there as far as uh covering of butt goes. But uh, you know, the big the bigger thing is we're gonna have a summer show, we're gonna have this much tenting and c and covered over places or you know, whatever where you can have where you can create dogs safely. You know, there you go. But it's it's not it's I think the responsibility is shared between the venue, the club, the kennel club, and the exhibitors. Because if we're gonna have this and we're gonna have people come, because people sometimes aren't so smart, you know, and we wanna we wanna protect our dogs, even the ones that are owned by the dumb people. You know, then we need to like go ahead and make doing the right thing easy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, and I think, you know, I think it's beneficial for everybody. I think the knee-jerk reaction, you know, kind of gets you, it's like you let it settle out a little bit, everybody can adjust a little bit, not that big of a deal. All is gonna be good, the world's gonna go on, we're gonna continue showing our dogs, and you know, we're gonna educate ourselves, we're gonna keep our dogs protected, and we're gonna keep showing up, and we're gonna keep winning ribbons. And, you know, whatever the purpose is that you're there, you're gonna keep doing it. We're gonna protect our dogs, and we're gonna keep our dogs alive, and all will be fine. We just, you know, abide by the policies. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01The wor the sun, the sun will come up tomorrow. Yes, it will.
SPEAKER_00All right. Uh did we did we beat this horse today? I hope to hear some of it.
SPEAKER_01I think so. I but I would like to, if somebody wants to have some like constructive ideas as to things that that could maybe be done, maybe share them on our Facebook page and stuff. Maybe we can get some get some information together for the clubs, and maybe we can the the folks at the kennel club will take that into take some of these ideas into consideration as how we can how we can put forth a better education for people on how to how to do this and how to do this better.
SPEAKER_00I I do like the idea of kennel clubs, you know, thinking about their dates, you know, and their weather for their area, you know, things like that. That seems super beneficial. You know, there was a lot of good ideas we talked about on here, you know, and and so I'd I'd love to hear feedback in our group on Facebook, yeah, like what people think, like what can we do to make the dog shows safer, you know, with temperature, weather, you know, things along those lines. How can account club help? How can AKC help? And how can exhibitors, you know, how can we uh be more beneficial as well to make this all make one big smooth rolling machine with as many shows as we have going on now, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and because I've got to tell you, even when you don't like somebody else at this show, you'll still help them with their dogs. You know, I mean, everybody's I mean, how many times have you done that?
SPEAKER_00You got somebody that's like you don't necessarily like, but it's like their dog and or they're in distress and it affects their dogs. It's like dog people are the first people there to help, whether you hate the people or not, because you don't you care about the dog.
SPEAKER_01Yep. Yeah, you're gonna you're gonna help them out, you're gonna get them through this, and so get them passed out of this danger situation so that they're gonna be okay and that you'll be able to hate them again next week. But right now we got to take care of this. And especially when it involves animals, and I think we can get a lot further by working with this together and kind of like saying, well, if we're gonna have these outside summer events, we're going to work together to be able to keep them. We're gonna we're gonna take turns watching each other's rigs, and you know, and we'll come we'll come up with we'll come up with ways to watch each other's dogs. I think it can happen.
SPEAKER_00All right. This was a great episode, you know, other than technology problems that we had, but we had a backup plan, you know, and we thank every thank everybody for tuning in. Yeah. Uh so make sure that you uh subscribe to the YouTube channel, like us on Facebook, uh, YouTube, join our youth our Facebook group. We love to hear your thoughts. We love to hear uh future episode ideas. We do have a couple episodes planned coming up, and you know, next week is the one that we've been talking about for for a little bit where we got a show chair coming on to talk about entry numbers and and just what he's seen over time and got some good insight from a show chair, so that's gonna be fun. I know you're gonna have some good questions for him, good insight, so all good things coming up. So, and then we got a national coming in like three or four weeks. It's coming up quick. So we'll be heading out to the Houston for the Japanese Chin National and and enjoying that. So, all right, everybody. Thanks for joining this episode of the Tack Box Podcast. We will talk to you guys all next week. Have a great day now. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.