By Jed Weisberger
IWDBA Communications
Hear ye, hear ye. We aim to make 2022 a fun and productive year for the International Working Dog Breeding Association.
Just take a bit of time to see how much our members – on an International basis – have accomplished recently with the dogs we all love. The list is impressive.
Some have been involved in training dogs who can diagnose Covid-19 and many other diseases by detecting a difference in smell between people who are healthy and those who are ill. Others have dogs who can discover different kinds of explosives, allowing such devices to be disarmed before they cause damage.
Then we have members who breed dogs who will adapt to working in so many areas. They go hand-in-hand with those who have studied canine genetics and focus on heredity.
And others are involved in the breeding and training of dogs who work with law enforcement and other areas in the public interest. Many are veterinarians who have done much valuable research on the health and well-being of our dogs.
Such dedicated individuals make up the IWDBA, and are achieving advancements every day. One of the goals of 2022 is to recognize these determined individuals in the colleges and universities where their work is done and the cities and towns they work in and come from.
To do that, the plan, starting in March, will be to recognize our members in a set of features. The goals of these stories include:
- Detailing the importance of our members’ accomplishments and assuring these endeavors are recognized by both our IWDBA membership and others interested in the dogs we love.
- Further communication between the interlocking work of our members, helping them to get to know each other better and, perhaps, assist on a given project and offer a different perspective.
- To grow the IWDBA membership by placing these accomplishments before a bigger audience, developing additional interest and curiosity about the growing role the IWDBA has with working dogs.
In developing these features, which will appear twice monthly and will be 500- to 750-words in length, we will be glad to accept ideas from members at jed.weisberger@iwdba.org or we will contact members for their interest.
The features will all appear at https://www.iwdba.org, with the aim of placing them in journals, campus publications and the general print and digital media. Such recognition, as it develops, could boost the IWDBA to a different level.
Additionally, these will also mesh with other events – such as webinars we are planning for 2022 – as we begin putting together IWDC 2023, which we certainly hope will be in person.