04/13/2026
** Today it’s not to late! It’s an easy click and send ! If you love performance events like FAST CAT, EARTH DOG, and even BARN HUNT - read this post. An amendment has been added to Farm Bill to ban these type of activities. Please read this post from AKC Government Relations.
The club will discuss this bill in our meeting on Monday.
Dear AKC Exhibitor,
We are contacting you because you have participated in AKC Events that could be severely impacted or eliminated by a radical proposal in the U.S, House Farm Bill that will be considered in the next few weeks. Please take a moment to share your concerns with your member of Congress and share this important information with your fellow dog enthusiasts, sportsmen, and event participants.
Thank you for your valuable time and effort to protect our dogs and our sporting events.
An amendment to the House Farm Bill (HR 7567) proposed by animal rights groups threatens the future of AKC performance events and recognized hunt training techniques.
Please join AKC and leading sportsmen’s organizations in defending responsible dog enthusiasts, sportsmen and trainers. Please contact your member of the U.S. Congress and respectfully ask Congress to remove language derived from the “Greyhound Protection Act of 2025” (HR 5017) from the Farm Bill before final passage.
Scroll down for an easy way to protect your rights and your sports.
Why This Matters
While the stated intent of the Greyhound Protection Act is to address concerns related to commercial greyhound racing, the provision attached to the Farm Bill is overly broad and risks eliminating or banning standard training and event practices for certain field trials, performance events, lawful hunting with dogs, and other widely accepted training methods used by responsible dog owners and handlers.
In fact, the amendment goes well beyond “commercial” greyhound racing – which currently only exists in one state; it also bans live lure training, use of live lures, and open field coursing events involving live animals.
Because these terms lack clear statutory definitions, they could be interpreted in ways that affect lawful hunting activities and traditional dog training methods. For example, controlled exposure to live birds, or other game animals, is a widely accepted and essential component of preserving unique breed characteristics and training bird dogs, retrievers, hounds, and other working dogs. Dog trainers and hunters commonly use farm‑raised birds such as pigeons, ducks, or pheasants to teach scent recognition, steadiness, retrieval skills, and humane handling of game. These practices help ensure that hunting dogs perform their work effectively and minimize harm to wildlife during hunts.
Without clear exemptions, prohibiting the use of live animals in canine events that showcase breed characteristics, responsible hunting, or dog training could effectively eliminate long-standing, responsible training methods.
These restrictions could easily be interpreted or amended to severely impact or eliminate:
Field trials,
Hunt tests,
Earthdog competition,
Barn Hunt,
Nite Hunts, and
Other organized dog sports/events that are conducted under carefully controlled conditions.
It could also easily be interpreted or amended to impact other popular and responsible running / racing events that do not use live lures, including:
Lure Coursing,
Coursing Ability Tests (CAT); or
Fast CAT events.
You Can Make a Meaningful Impact
Click here to send a message directly to your member of Congress.
https://www.akcgr.org/campaign/160441/
The American Kennel Club
