A.C.E.S.

Petition to the American Kennel Club

Thank you for helping out with the ACES Petition. ACES stands for All Canines Equal in Sport, and it's a group of people who think that mixed breeds should be welcome to compete in AKC performance events (specifically, obedience, agility, and tracking).

If you would like to help gather signatures for the ACES petition, please help us out by following these instructions:

ANYONE who competes with their dog or WANTS to compete with their dog is eligible to sign, not just AKC competitors. Take the petitions to training classes, USDAA, NADAC, UKC, and AKC competitions, and anywhere else where you might find dog people.

MOST IMPORTANT: When you have collected signatures, please do NOT mail completed petitions to the AKC! We want to mail the petitions all at once, so they need to be sent to ME. Mail to:

Elizabeth TeSelle
616 Boscobel Street
Nashville, TN 37206

If you give someone else petitions to fill out, please be sure to also give them a copy of this instruction sheet! It won't do as much good for the petitions to dribble in -- we want to make a real impact with these!

Questions about the petition should be directed to Elizabeth at

(615) 244-7071 (e-mail eteselle@law.vanderbilt.edu).

Thanks for your help!! We appreciate it very much.

- Petition -

From Exhibitors to The American Kennel Club

We, the undersigned, ask that the American Kennel Club amend its rules to allow mixed breed dogs to participate in the following AKC performance activities: obedience, agility, and tracking. While we understand that the purpose of the

AKC is "to promote the advancement of purebred dogs," we believe that by allowing mixed breeds to participate in performance events (as many other purebred registries both in the United States and abroad already do), the AKC would be sending a message that ALL dogs are deserving of caring homes and useful work, while still maintaining its position that only purebreds should be bred. By allowing spayed or neutered mixed breeds to participate in this way, and by encouraging their owners to train and care for them, we think that the AKC could accomplish not only the letter of its goal, but its spirit as well.

We ask that the AKC give our petition the serious consideration it deserves. 

Name                     Address                Do you have purebreds, mixed
                                                   breeds, or both?

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