Write to the secretary

The register takes letters. Most entries in it began as a question somebody actually asked: how to read a premium list, what makes a weekend a specialty, why a club newsletter once ran a page of brags. If you have a question of that kind, about the culture of the show rather than about a dog of your own, it is welcome.

What the register can take up

Questions about the culture itself: how a premium list reads, what a specialty asks of its exhibitors, what the judging program tells you, what a catalogue records and what it leaves out. Questions about the club side of the record: the newsletter, the brags page, the meeting, what a breed club keeps and why it kept it that way. And corrections, always: if an entry is wrong, say where, and it will be checked against the record and stamped when it is fixed.

What the register cannot take up

It cannot pass a message to any club, living or remembered, and it does not hold the old club's files. For entries, eligibility and referrals, the honest answers are the American Kennel Club and the national parent club for the breed, the same sources this register consults first.

How to write

Write to [email protected]. Give the question plainly, name the show or the page if it concerns one, and expect an entry rather than a brochure. Letters are read in the order they arrive; a question that makes a good entry may be answered in the book itself, with the questioner unnamed. No list is kept, nothing is advertised or sold, and a letter is used only to answer it.