History

The AKC was founded in Philadelphia by 13 breed clubs (10 American, 3 Canadian) in 1884. This “club of clubs” met in various U.S. cities until 1886 or 1887 (AKC sources differ), when it established an office in New York City, where its headquarters remain. As Margaret Derry explained in Bred for Perfection (2003), “The evolution of dog shows in North America [such as the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, which began in 1877] brought about the need for regulation, just as it had in Britain, and kennel clubs came into existence to fulfill that need.”

The AKC was especially concerned with publishing a reliable studbook (for recording a purebred’s pedigree and lineage) and establishing breed standards and the rules and regulations for dog shows and judges. An earlier organization, the National American Kennel Club (founded in 1876), had begun a studbook, later shared with the AKC, but dealt mainly with field trials for “gun dogs” (such as pointers and retrievers trained for hunting), not dog shows. The AKC also differed from its British counterpart, the Kennel Club (founded in 1873, the oldest recognized kennel club in the world), by extending membership only to dog clubs. The Canadian clubs pulled out of the AKC in 1886 and formed their own national club (the Canadian Kennel Club) in 1888. The following year, the AKC launched the AKC Gazette, the oldest continuously published dog magazine in the United States.

The AKC had registered nine breeds by 1887, but this number grew quickly in subsequent years. AKC rules regulating dog shows also evolved over time; between 1905–07, for example, the AKC established the now-common point system for dog shows. In 1924 it separated dogs into five breed groups for the purposes of showing and competition: sporting dogs, working dogs, terriers, toy breeds, and non-sporting breeds. All dogs competed within their breed category.

The AKC experienced a surge in membership after World War II, as military veterans returned home, suburbs blossomed, and the interest in purebred dogs spread to all social classes. As Michael Lemonick explained in a 2001 Time magazine article, the AKC was founded by:

bluebloods who pledged “to do everything to advance the study, breeding, exhibiting, running and maintenance of purity of thoroughbred dogs.” At the time purebreds were status symbols, owned exclusively by the wealthy and prized for their strength, skill and intelligence as much as for their looks. But during the 1940s, as the middle class sucked in vast numbers of new members with aspirations of gentility, these Americans began to insist on purebreds too, and their popularity took off.

The AKC had registered some 70,000 dogs by 1944; this number skyrocketed to some 240,000 in 1949. The AKC reported in 2024 that it registers more than a million dogs annually.