Social media has fundamentally changed the way we interact with our public at large and, even more, in our sport. What started as an innovative way to approach our target has become an essential tool for marketing, public relations and services. But as easy as social media has made it to connect with our customers and friends, it does come with some drawbacks.

There is no control on social media. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter allow anyone and everyone to share opinions which makes for interesting conversation, but it can be very dangerous. Social media must be continuously monitored to maintain a positive content.

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Rafael de Santiago
FCI President
FCI Standards Commission - Activity report

FCI Standards Commission meeting in Cancun (Mexico), Thursday 7th of April 2016.

Participants :
M. Jorge Nallem, President of the Commission
M. Hans Wiblishauser
M. Rui Oliveira
Dr Ferdinando Asnaghi
Prof. Claude Guintard

Excused: Mr Petru Muntean

Secretary of the meeting: C. Guintard

We had a very warm welcome from the hosts J. L. Martínez and Dr Andrés Villalobos (Mexico) whom I want to thank in a very special way for all the work that they carried out to prepare our meeting and all the attentions they had for us.

The meeting took place at the Hotel Live Aqua Cancun which our guests reserved for us.

The FCI Standards Commission’s main work being to revise and adapt new and existing standards is constant. The focus on dog’s health continues to cause countries to review the text in standards extra carefully to avoid wordings that may result in interpretations that can lead to exaggerations that might cause health risks in the dogs.

The Commission continuously amends or thoroughly revises standards and the co-operation with the member countries is usually efficient. Still, the procedure has to go through several steps before a standard can be published, and rightly so as these documents are the backbone in the work of the FCI and its member countries.

Viewing of the text in standards from a health and welfare perspective is intensified. This is not always to the liking of the countries of origin, but in the interest of keeping the breeds for the future, we all have to realise that exaggerations in type as well as character issues in guard dogs might not only jeopardise the health of the dogs, it may also increase the risk to have breeds banned by law.

We tried to mark a working method within the commission; how to manage the standards since they arrive to the office until they are seen and discussed by the commission and send back to the FCI General Committee.

Amended or re-worded standards

  1. Eurasier
  2. Gordon Setter
  3. Slovakian wire-haired Pointer
  4. Bavarian Scenthound
  5. Cirnecco dell’Etna
  6. Kai
  7. Hokkaido
  8. Kishu
  9. Shikoku
  10. Shiba
  11. Finnish Lapphund

We revised the standards belonging to the Kennel Club.

Standards of Irish breeds were received with an annex of the main points to give special attention to; we sent them back, underlying which points should be in the standards and not in the annex.

Interra’s request to judge separately the Russell terriers wire and smooth was accepted.

The next meeting will take place in the same dates of the Third Dog Health Workshop, in April 20th and 21st 2017, in Paris.

I would like to thank my colleagues for the friendship and good work in the Commission. I also want to thank the FCI Scientific Commission, as well as the staff at the FCI General Secretariat in Thuin for the excellent collaboration, and the General Committee for their support.

Jorge Nallem
President of the FCI Standards Commission