I'm sure that you could not, in conscience, tell any owner of an altered dog or bitch that registration of such an animal is worth anything. Which also leads to dog buyers asking the rhetorical question, "Since I'm not going to use my dog for breeding and am not interested in competitive events, should I pay a fee to register him (or her)?"

After all, a registry exists to supervise and promote the production of top-quality dogs. More power to the AKC if it can convince dog buyers that registration of any eligible dog is a mark of distinction in which great pride can be taken or offer the possibility that any puppy purchased may become a champion.

But when you oppose some of the basic tenets of successful dog breeding, careful selection and sensible--even ruthless--culling by penalizing your members who expect support and guidance from their registry as they adhere to its avowed purposes, you are violating good faith and talking out of both sides of your mouth.

Question: I look forward every month to your department in GUN DOG, but the reason I am writing now is in regard to an article you wrote in the April/May 1997 issue titled "Brownie and Curly Revisited." I had just purchased my American water spaniel in October, 1996 and was very excited to see you write an article on such a rare breed. I later learned you were a long-time owner and promoter of the breed.

Your article inspired me to participate in these events, which ultimately led my dog to becoming the first AWS to earn a "Hunting Retriever" title. At this writing I'm one pass away from also earning the new "Upland" title before moving into the "Finished" category. So, I'd like to thank you again, and my plans are to purchase two additional American water spaniels to continue running in HRC/UKC events. (Florida)

Answer: So much mail deals with puzzling negative stuff that it's a pleasure every now and then to include one of you "day-makers" who don't really ask for an answer.

You've hooked up with a good outfit for hunters interested in gun dogs if the United Kennel Club's Hunting Retriever Club testing hasn't regressed too much since its formative years back in the 1980s.

While I didn't pour any foundations, I helped build the basement when Omar Driskell, Andy Johnson and Bill Tarrant were doing the groundwork, writing for the UKC publication and serving as a judge during the time it was difficult to find arbiters broadly experienced in both hunting and field trials.

From my last in-the-field contacts with the hunting retriever testing and following others' accounts of this "by and for hunters" retriever movement, it seems it has succumbed to some extent to the inevitable and become more "field trially" as far as training and testing goes. But it was the first organized effort to offer hunters an opportunity to train and test for something closer to actual hunting requirements than the high-powered conventional retriever trials and win recognition for their dogs. From the start, it offered any breed the opportunity to demonstrate that individual dogs can be good retrievers even if not officially classed as one of the retriever breeds. The North American Hunting Retriever Association and the AKC hunt tests for retrievers were sequential offshoots of the UKC/HRC.

As you may have discovered as you've become deeply involved with your favorite breed, your good opinion of me is not shared by a number of other American Water Spaniel fanciers. Some took offense to the article you said inspired you.

While my mail ran about 4 to 1 on the side of "right on" and "a needed wake-up call," some friends and defenders also advised that the Internet was clogged with attacks by breed-club officers. I managed to survive while maintaining my lifelong respect for the little brown spaniels, if not for some of their erstwhile supporters. It seems logical that the AWS organization would affiliate with the UKC, which in 1920 was the first registry to recognize the breed and provides an avenue for owners to field test their dogs' ability under the sane standards other breeds in their class must meet. The smaller of the two AWS organizations, the American Water Spaniel Field Association, has been making overtures to the UKC and, by the time you read this, may have something going for the breed's benefit.

Meanwhile, the larger American Water Spaniel Club, an official affiliate of the AKC, continues to refuse to "classify" the breed as either a spaniel or a retriever, thereby making it ineligible to run in AKC hunt tests or field trials which are restricted to flushing or fetching "specialists." Calling, its breed "unclassified" and inferring that their unique talents put Americans at a different level than the other spaniels and retrievers, ASWC movers and shakers invent their own standards and testing procedures.

The AM1's attitude toward such shenanigans is as puzzling as the ASWC is illogical. The backbone of the ASWC is conformation shows, not field trials or tests, and the AKC has already designated the breed as a spaniel--not only by official name but by putting it in the sporting group and classifying it as a spaniel for show purposes. To be logical, since the "show element" in the AWSC contravenes the wishes of the "field element" in their efforts to promote the hunting qualities of the breed, the AKC should be petitioned to put Americans in the miscellaneous class for show competition.

Meanwhile, with the two internal groups at loggerheads, a capable and useful gun dog breed (one of the few of U.S. origin) remains obscure and its public image deteriorates. Show entries are comparatively small, and it's rare for an AWS to attain a group win after besting a small handful of its own kind for best of breed. Because of resistance to classification status and installing a weak substitute for AKC field-testing procedures, field dogs are virtually unknown and their abilities sorely unappreciated by the public. The AKC has evolved into the world's largest combination dog service and governing body with a responsibility to all its affiliates large or small. If the push-and-pull foolish strife were going on in Labrador or golden-retriever parent clubs, the AKC would have hopped in long ago to provide guidance. As the two most popular breeds in the U.S., Labs and goldens represent big money. Orphan breeds like American water spaniels do not. Thus, it might be concluded that the AKC isn't prepared to require adjustments. For hunters and field dog American owners like yourself, be thankful that other organizations offer you a chance to see how your fine little gun dogs stack up in relation to other breeds afield.