Emily Brill

AKC spokeswoman Brandi Hunter told The Canine Review that there are about 138,500 active, unique breeders as of November 2019 who are subject to AKC inspection, including the 11,000 Breeders of Merit. Ms. Hunter also said that the inspectors work about 300 days per year (there are about 240 business days in a calendar year). This means that the ten AKC inspectors would each need to conduct at least 13, 850 inspections per year – – or 46 inspections per day – – for all 300 days for all breeders with AKC-registered litters to be inspected annually.
Ms. Hunter explained that although 138,500 is the total number of breeders subject to inspection, the breeders most likely to be inspected and who take top priority for AKC inspectors are higher volume breeders producing six or more litters per year. That amounts to 5% of all breeders, or 6,925 out of the 138,500, Hunter said. Even that more modest number would be daunting for the AKC staff. Inspection chief Bach told The Canine Review that his team conducts 3,000 inspections per year, on average (or 300 inspections per inspector per year). That would mean that even assuming that only the highest priority category of breeders is subject to inspection, those breeders could only expect to be inspected once every 2.3 years. And all of the other 131,575 breeders, including thousands of Breeders of Merit, would never be inspected at all. Similarly, with only ten inspectors on its payroll, it would be impossible for even the most select category of breeders subject to inspection — the 11,000 Breeders of Merit — to be ‘routinely’ inspected, as the AKC’s website promises. If only Breeders of Merit were subject to inspection, those breeders could expect an inspection an average of every 3.6 years.