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Over the years, industrialists, businessmen, veterinarians, physicians, and lawmakers have combined professional expertise with deep-rooted experience in purebred dogs and applied a broad spectrum of skills to the administration of the American Kennel Club. It’s a formula we strive to replicate today among our management and directors, who bring specialized knowledge and experience to their positions.

A snapshot of the American Kennel Club in 1884 would be a very different picture than what is residing today on Madison Avenue and Centerview Drive. A single desk and filing cabinet, a couple of chairs, and a part-time staff of four have given way to an operations center in Raleigh and headquarters in New York employing 413 people. A close-knit Delegate body consisting of fewer than 20 sportsmen has swelled to a roster of over 570 male and female representatives of AKC member clubs. An initial record of fewer than a dozen dog shows has been eclipsed by the sanctioning of over 16,000 events in 2004, the crowning glory of which was our own AKC/Eukanuba National Championship. Registrations of individual dogs counted 1,416 at our inception. One hundred twenty years later, in a competitive landscape of 23 different registries, AKC’s individual dog registrations have attained an impressive volume approximating one million each year.

Much of AKC’s success today is owed to our consistent allegiance to the mission mapped by our founders, coupled with the sound business practices we apply to daily operations. As we uphold cherished traditions, we are attentive to trends in the fancy and the general public. We have adapted our menu of events to accommodate fanciers’ new and varied interests in canine competition. Our foundation sports of conformation shows, field events, and obedience trials have been joined by several new performance venues that allow purebred dogs to showcase their functional instincts and original purpose, as well as wildly popular companion events such as agility, and, most recently, rally.