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Falling
income threatens French KC
SHOCK!
HORROR! Best describes the reaction of delegates to the French
Kennel Club’s annual general meeting to the news that its
very existence was threatened, and that immediate and drastic
measures were required to save it. In his third year as President,
Renaud Buche told representatives of breed and regional clubs
of losses of a million francs a month since the start of the
year, writes Harry Baxter.
For 30 years the Société Centrale Canine has maintained
the register of dogs identified by tattoo, a responsibility
placed upon it by the Ministry of Agriculture. In the past year,
100,000 dogs, lost or strayed, had been recovered by means of
the register. Registration fees were a major part of the society’s
income. However, since the introduction of the ‘chip’
as an alternative means of identification, and in less than
a year, demands for tattoo certificates had fallen from close
on 70,000 a month to little more than 30,000.
Though veterinary surgeons had not succeeded in imposing the
chip as the sole means of identification, and owners and breeders
still had the right to choose, nevertheless they had other means
at their disposal - to order fewer and fewer tattoo certificates
and to tattoo fewer and fewer dogs. Soon breeder-tattooists
could be the only ones requesting the forms.
Meanwhile, the society has maintained its responsibility, with
a staff of 54. Requests addressed to the Ministry of Agriculture
for information concerning future responsibility for the register
had met with no response. President Buche announced the launching
of a redundancy plan affecting the register’s staff.
There was more bad news. The loss of the Society’s international
championship show, 2001, moved from the Longchamp racecourse
to Bourget, was much greater than anticipated, amounting to
580,000 Euros (£386,600). In part this was accounted for
by termination payments to managerial staff employed for the
show.
Numbed by astonishment, likened to their being anaesthetised,
as Vos Chiens magazine put it, members nevertheless rallied
to the President and voted, almost unanimously, to accept both
the financial report and that of the President.
With the very existence of the society at stake, it may seem
they had very little choice.
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