22/09/2026
Correcting the record 🐕
I got something wrong, and I want to put it right.
I have previously described Piccino as Australia's No. 1 Italian Greyhound breeder more than 15 times, and at times as 15 consecutive years. When this was questioned, I went back and checked every year against the DogzOnline pointscore archives myself. Those figures were wrong, and I'm sorry for publishing them.
The figure came from an AI research tool I used to summarise our history, and I didn't verify its output against the primary records before posting. That's on me.
The verified record:
Piccino has been Australia's No. 1 Italian Greyhound breeder in the DogzOnline Breeder of the Year competition 11 times, in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025. That includes two runs of four consecutive years, 2009 to 2012 and 2022 to 2025. There was no competition in 2020 due to COVID-19.
The other years belong to Wondoan (2008), Tunamara (2013, 2014 and 2015), Berizza (2018) and Oakway (2021). Those are outstanding achievements and I congratulate those breeders sincerely.
I've updated my posts and profiles to reflect the verified results.
I will say that I'm disappointed in how this was raised. Publishing a figure I believed was accurate, and correcting it as soon as I learned it wasn't, is very different from knowingly inventing achievements. A direct message would have seen this corrected just as quickly, without public commentary about my character. I'd simply ask that, in future, concerns like this are raised with me directly before they're raised in public.
The suggestion that I've been disrespectful to the breeders who won those years also doesn't reflect reality. I currently have two Wondoan bi***es here with us and we are proud to be showing them. Berizza's most recent litter was sired by a Piccino dog, so the latest Berizza generation is, quite literally, a collaboration between our two kennels. These relationships are built on years of mutual respect, and I value them enormously. Getting a number wrong doesn't change that.
Finally, a lesson I'm taking from this. AI can be a genuinely useful tool, but only when it's used well, and that means checking what it tells you against the source. I trusted it where I should have verified it. Like many of us, I'm still learning how to use these tools properly, and this has been a humbling reminder that the responsibility for what I publish sits with me, not the tool.
