Sable Timeline-page4

1990
ASC Board: President-Marilyn Pryor, Tom O’Neal, Betty Schachner, Carl Anderson, Mildred Cates, Carroll Stewart, Monty Barber, Louise Milner, Cyndi Sykora, Charles Born, Marilyn Spacht, Robert Moneysmith, Rosemary Smalley, Muriel Barber. Standard Chairman-Ron Fabis.
In 1987 the AKC sent information to all parent clubs requiring that ALL breed clubs reword their Standards to fit their (AKC) format. The reason for this massive undertaking was to ‘eliminate major omissions, errors and inconsistencies in the breed standards.’ According to the Board, this involved voting on ALL sections of the Standard. Changes HAD to be affected in order to meet AKC’s requirements. The old Standard’s wording was NOT acceptable as AKC (among other requests) wanted a list of acceptable colors to appear in the Standards of the breeds.
From the AKC Booklet about Standard Revisions:
"Disqualifications: Disqualifications should be used with extreme care. They should refer to a specific problem in the breed that cannot be handled in any other way." And under Color: "Include under this heading the color and markings of the coat. In breeds where multiple colors or color combinations are acceptable, but not all colors are permitted, the complete list of all acceptable colors and color combinations must be included in the standard. In such cases, any color combinations not mentioned are unacceptable, and judges are to pass judgment on this basis."
In my opinion the disqualification clause was redundant. If you had an animal whose color wasn’t among the list of acceptable colors why would you exhibit it? The judge would just say that your dog wasn’t an acceptable color and excuse it.
Polly Swanson presented a petition to the Board asking that a vote on the sable colors be included. She was requested by members of the Board* to withdraw her petition. She did so with the assurances of those Board members that a vote on the sable colors would be included and the membership would be allowed to vote YES or NO. Those members of the Board DID NOT live up to their agreement with the author of this petition because once again the ballot was not constructed to give a YES or NO vote to include the sable colors.
The cover letter for this ballot from ASC reads in part: "This new format is required by AKC." And "Understand that we have a current Standard. A ‘No’ vote on any section is, in effect a vote to have the current Standard remain unchanged."The ballot then went on to offer in the Color and Markings section THREE choices. Alternative A listed the allowed colors including sable in the ASCOB variety and sable/white in the particolor variety. Alternative B listed all colors with the exception of sable in the ASCOB variety and sable/white in the Particolor variety. Or "If you want NO CHANGE in the current Standard’s Color and Markings Section, (which did not list allowed colors) leave both boxes blank." This ballot also added under disqualifications "The aforementioned colors are the only acceptable colors or combination of colors. Any other colors or combination of colors to disqualify."
This time 1827 ballots were mailed out and 927 were returned. 926 were deemed valid. ALL Sections PASSED with the exception of the Color and Markings Section. The multiple choice ballot had resulted in 590 votes for Alternative A to include sables in the list of acceptable colors, 238 votes for Alternative B for the list of colors that did not include sables and 98 ballots with NEITHER box marked thus indicating a vote for NO CHANGE in the current wording of the Standard which was not acceptable to AKC’s new requirements for Standards! So once again NONE of the options received the required 2/3 majority to pass! But there was now a disqualification clause for the Color and Markings Section of our Standard!
This method of balloting was not logical to many members and when Dr. Clyde Shaw (among others) contacted AKC regarding this ballot they replied to him in a letter* dated February 27, 1991, from John Mandeville (Director, Judging Research & Development):
"As to your point about how the percentages should be calculated: We had advised the American Spaniel Club that offering multiple choices was likely to result in no choice getting the required percentage. However, as the ballot was presented members knew not voting for either choice was selecting the existing standard’s text. This cannot be construed as an abstention in the usual sense, and we have been so advised by counsel."
So AKC had warned ASC that wording the ballot in this way was likely to result in no change to the standard and yet they sent it out anyway. Whose idea was it to have three choices on an amendment that according to our By Laws should have been either a Yes or No vote? Kristi Tukua (Legal Chair) says that John Mandeville suggested the three choices and yet we have seen his reply to questions regarding that issue.
Then ASC President Marilyn Pryor when questioned said that the "legal chair" had suggested the three choices and the legal chair when asked again said that "the Board" had "done it" as they felt that some members might not want Alternative A or Alternative B, so they needed a third choice! So WHO really made what amounted to (at least in my opinion) this very questionable decision?