Do you know why I’m thankful? It’s a big week for the GBGV! January 1, 2018 the Grand Basset Griffon Vendéen officially became a recognized AKC breed! It’s pretty exciting for all of us. Becoming an AKC breed is a long, complicated process that takes a lot of work!
What does it mean to say the Grand Basset Griffon Vendéen is fully recognized by the AKC? This means, you will now start seeing dogs like me competing in the Hound Group at AKC shows! Mom has no interest in showing us, so why do we care? Being fully accepted means my breed will finally be on breed lists. Currently when we sign up for things, my breed is not on the list most of the time which is frustrating. More people will see GBGV’s, and learn more about our breed.
Our hope is we remain a fairly rare breed, but slowly increase in number. We are not easy dogs to live with, being very goofy, yet head strong, and independent. Our humans need to embrace a challenge, and not mind lots of frustration!
Getting to this point for our breed has been a long road, filled with lots of hard work. The first GBGV came to the USA from Holland in 1990. The first USA born litter was in 1994. Ten years later in 2004, the first GBGV was registered with the AKC in the Foundation Stock Services Category. When I came to the USA in 2007, I also registered as FSS. In 2014, the GBGV breed was approved to compete in the Miscellaneous Class of the AKC. Now, finally this week, we are in the Hound Group, howling where we belong! The AKC is in no hurry to update their website, but we truly are in the Hound Group, and I believe GBGV’s will be at Westminster next month.
To be an accepted AKC breed has to do with the breed club, the number of registered dogs, titles, accomplishments, and much more. Our small part has been to earn some AKC titles, attending a variety of events to be seen, traveled the country, as well as blogging about our breed.
Speaking of my blog, I’m so thankful to all of you who come by to read about what we are up to. With Mom’s business taking off last year, we lost some of our extra time to work on the blog, but I’m proud to say we once again increased our numbers!
Our social media presence also increased and we hit and surpassed our goal of 10,000 Twitter followers are are now at 11,000! Facebook is not a nice media to work with. They only want money since they went public. I refuse to pay to have my posts seen, so it is a slow place to grow, but we gained followers, and it is the number one referral source to my blog!
Now do you understand why I’m feeling thankful today? Thanks to all of you for being a part of the My GBGV Life success!
Today we are joining Brian’s blog in the Thankful Thursday Blog Hop. Stop by some other blogs to find out what they are thankful for!
Well that was fun hearing about your breed and you sure are a handsome boy. I have heard of this breed but didn’t know much about it. Thanks for coming by our blog. You all have a great day.
Thanks for stopping by! There isn’t much about the breed anywhere as we are low in numbers pretty much everywhere, but it is a nice way to be.
I think if the three of you entered you would come in first, second and third.
I’m a perfect specimen of the GBGV. Bailie is too tall, and Madison is too short, but Mom doesn’t care because we are perfect as is in her opinion.
That really is wonderful and way overdue too! Thanks for joining the Thankful Thursday Blog Hop!
Thank you. We are glad to finally be a real breed in the country where we live!
Congratulations!
Thank you. We are pretty happy.
That’s great news for the breed. You all deserve recognition!
Thank you. We are happy to finally be “real” where we live. It’s tough trying to explain yourself when your breed is not “official”.
that’s my wish too… it’s not good to become a popular breed what will be misused as a fashion accessoire… it often ends not good for the breed. But I’m glad that the AKC accepted the best noses of da world and I really wonder why this happened so late…. here we often see your small cousins, but the real GBGV is still a rare breed … but nevertheless an eyecatcher at every show ;O)
The PBGV has been recognized for a long time now. We are happy to remain a rare, mysterious type of hound, but it is nice to be a real breed finally. Hopefully we will never be popular.
Well congrats for the breed being recognized into the hound group. I pray though your breed is not so ruined as many which has gained popularity. Being a Scottie my breed has certainly seen its down side.
Happy New Year
Sweet William The Scot
Our club is very picky about things and we hope that continues and our breed remains fairly rare, but recognized. We see a lot of breeds where the recognition has been a bad thing.
Woooo hooo! Pawesome news!
Come and howl along with us!
Congratulations! Sounds like a wonderful breed to me.
We think so, but we are a bit biased!
We will be excited to see the GBGV being shown! Of course, none of them can hold a candle to your beauty. XXOO Bentley
My breeder is always sad Mom didn’t let me have puppies or show me because I am so perfect, but I’m happy as is. Nice to finally have our breed be recognized!
We are excited with this development! We know that not all breeds are for anyone, some are just for special humans that know and love specific personalities. We PBGV peeples are working to keep us only for our special people.
We still find PBGV’s pretty rare and we hope to keep the GBGV the same way. It’s just nice to be a real breed in our own country! Special people deserve special breeds!
We will definitely have to tune in to Westminster and see who shows up there! We wish it would be you, but can understand why showing is not your Mom’s thing. It’s still exciting to have your breed recognized, and you are a great ambassador for it, Emma!
There are plenty of GBGV parents who are into showing and we will be on the lookout for our breed in the big shows too.
I have mixed feelings about this. Part of me is excited for this, while the other bit, the one who knows how the puppy millers jump on new breeds, isn’t so happy with it. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen.
The PBGV has been around for a while and they are still pretty rare. I don’t see us being a super popular breed as we are a difficult hound, with lots of maintenance. We shall see how it goes, but we are happy to finally be a “real” breed here in the US.
Glad da AKC has recognized y’all!
We are happy too!
As a dog lover, I thought I knew a lot of breeds, but I had never heard of the Grand Basset Griffon Vendéen breed before visiting your blog, now I know why! Congratulations on growing your twitter account, that is awesome!
We are not well known anywhere in the world really, but we like it that way. Being recognized with a low profile is our goal.
Congrats you finally get some recognition. Well deservrd too.
We are thrilled!
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Congratulations! And thanks for sharing those fascinating tidbits about your breed.
Thank you. We are happy to finally be real here in the USA.
That’s a great thing to be grateful for. Plus your mom’s business going so well, and all those twitter followers. I agree about FB… and I’m even wondering if we’re friends because I don’t recall seeing one of your posts. I’ll check. It’s my #1 referral source too.
Facebook is a sad thing these days, all the fun has been sucked out of it for pages! We enjoy Instagram too, but that one is owned by FB and is starting to lose the fun factor as well. We feel bad when money has to be the driving force.
Wahoo!! W are so glad the the GBGV is finally being recognized!! We need to get Mama on the ball with Twitter this year. We share mostly photographic content and Instagram is becoming our favorite “go to” social media app.
xoxo,
Rosy, Jakey & Arty
We really like Instagram and started using it a lot more the past year, but being owned by FB, it is also changing rapidly and posts are being limited in their reach. Such a bummer as it takes the fun out of it.
Whoo hoo welcome to AKC
Finally, we are a real breed in the USA. It is a nice accomplishment for the GBGV.
Congratulations my friend. This is one achievement I doubt I will ever see – but I’m okay with that.
Believe me, it is nothing we ever even thought about until we were here in the US. It is just nice to finally be considered a breed when we do things. Not sure what will happen with all the doodle dogs.