Thousands of fanciers, Legislative Liaisons, federation members and responsible dog owners across the country benefited from the AKC Canine Legislation department’s efforts in 2005. In the past year, the department:

• Responded to a record-setting 4,000 email inquires to doglaw@akc.org.
• Posted over 60 legislative alerts to AKC’s Web site.
• Hosted our third annual Lobby Day event in Washington, DC and expanded this year’s program.
• Cosponsored “Pet Night” on Capitol Hill for Members of Congress. Lobby Day participants were invited to attend for the first time this year.
• Launched major federal legislative campaign in support of the Pet Animal Welfare Statute (PAWS).
• Networked with nearly 12,000 legislators at the National Conference of State Legislators and National League of Cities Conference.
• Hosted Empowered Action seminars in Syracuse, NY and Houston, TX.
• Updated and enhanced several department resources, including our Dangerous Dog Information packet and Homeowners’ Insurance Resource Center on the Web.
• Added over 150 new Legislative Liaisons to the program.

Over the course of the year, the Canine Legislation department tracked over 500 federal, state, and municipal bills and ordinances that would impact the rights of dog owners. With the help of purebred dog fanciers, federations, dog clubs and other concerned owners, we took direct action on hundreds of initiatives. Together we posted several important victories at the state level, including the defeat of a California bill that would have prohibited ear cropping; breed-specific bills in Georgia, Illinois and Oklahoma; and breeding restriction bills in Massachusetts, Vermont and Virginia. The department also spent many weeks working closely with federations, clubs and dog owners in Florida, North Carolina and Texas to oppose overly-restrictive breeding regulations.

On the local level, over 50 percent of the ordinances tracked by AKC dealt with breed-specific/dangerous dog concerns, up substantially from 2005. Limit laws and breeding restriction proposals made up the bulk of the remaining initiatives, and interest in dog parks continued to grow. Unfortunately, so did the number of calls from dog owners dealing with homeowners’ insurance woes.