by Tina M. Barber

As can be seen by the following documentation, the American Rare Breed Association (ARBA) has done us, and probably many other breeds, a great disservice.

When ARBA first came on the scene providing rare breed clubs with a show venue that could be utilized in order to select the best specimens within their respective breeds, just as the AKC does within their recognized breeds, ARBA was helping many small groups to set proper type within their limited gene pools. After Anita left the organization,  the Slack brothers (John and Robert) started making up their own rules, and things started to fall apart.

The shows kept decreasing in size and many breeds chose to seek AKC recognition in order to attain the kind of credibility that ARBA could no longer provide.

Unfortunately, other groups that were seeking recognition for their designer/unpapered mixes jumped in to fill the gap! Obviously  ARBA was no longer interested in breed improvement, because they would allow anyone that claimed to be a "registry" to issue papers, enter their dogs and attain titles!

In the case of the Shiloh Shepherd, things started to deteriorate to such a low, that I ended up going to some of their shows just to take pictures and write my reports!

By the spring of 2007, I felt that this travesty had gone on long enough! After several failed attempts to resolve the problem, in April I published an open letter. Please double-click on the letter to view it in its entirety.

Many emails and phone calls ensued, resulting in my second attempt, on June 12, 2007, to state our position in even more detail.

Please double-click on the letter to view it in its entirety.

*Mr. Slack joined our forum and hopefully read the 91 posts that were presented to him by our members, but obviously he chose to ignore our pleas! After the Empire Classic Show a huge brouhaha erupted via the sliver camp and ARBA refused to make the separation between real ISSR Shiloh Shepherd versus Fake Shilohs permanent.

In July I published a full report regarding the Empire Classic! This was later revised into my newest article.

At that point, I had no choice but to request that ARBA remove my Breed Standard (thus removing showing privileges for All dogs claiming to be "Shilohs") from their show venue!

On August 9, 2007, our attorney sent this letter to ARBA.
Robert responded with...

The following shows the proposed ARBA standard.  The words in purple are from The Shiloh Shepherd Breed Standard, written and copyrighted by Tina M. Barber*,  the Shiloh Shepherd™ Breed Founder.  Words in brown are original to ARBA.  Words in brackets are in the Shiloh Shepherd Breed Standard as copyrighted by Tina M. Barber but were omitted in the ARBA description.

	After several calls back and forth with Robert still trying to negotiate HIS terms, we were forced to move forward with a new attorney that resides near DC and was capable of taking this matter all the way to Federal Court.

This finally resulted in ARBA's complete removal of our Breed Standard from their site!

At this point they are still listing MY name (Shiloh Shepherd) but without the standard. Obviously they are still trying to come up with something generic that won't violate my copyright but will allow the various fake registries to enter their GSDS mixes.

Of course, if they accept any entries that claim to be "Shilohs" at any of their show venues, we fully intend on pursuing any and all civil remedies and/or criminal sanctions available.

Furthermore, I have already started a new "Breed Development" series that will be published on the Dogwise site as well as being presented in various forms on a variety of sites in order to fully expose the damage that ARBA, and others like them, are doing to many wonderful breeds! I also am working on a new series that will expose these "rare breed" show organizations, like ARBA, for what they really are.