We're not alone out here. Check our

tax exempt counterpart at www.dogfraud.org

It got its start in California's Bay Area and it's fast building momentum. What? A new, no-nonsense Web site at www.dogfraud.org. Their E-Mail address is: hotline@dogfraud.org.

Incorporated as a fully tax exempt foundation, the "dogfraud" site is citing -- soliciting and collecting-- information concerning inconsistencies, any truly shoddy performance, -- and possible illegalities in AKC operations. Monitoring and recording over-the-borderline goings-on within the commercial puppy marketplace are also among its prime activities.

As their site name indicates the"hotline" folks are also actively interested in minimizing the spread of the myriad of canine genetic diseases. Those scourges, probably more than 1,000 of them, are widely, almost universally, dispersed among the American dog population. The Hotliners start by building, as best the Web can make possible, public awareness of these and other dire threats to the canine kind. Hip dysplasia, diabetes, epilepsy, deafness, fear biting and hundreds of other afflictions have been proliferated among our domestic dogs. They are resultant from unknowing, no-need-to-care, commercial marketplace breedings and marketing.

We strongly suggest that you tune the Hotliners in. Visit both their site and ours regularly. Participate. Contribute your experiences, insights and ideas to the body of common knowledge. And, if you want to participate in another very meaningful way, send a check along to help pay for the necessaries.

Help both our dogs and the people -- the families -- who want, indeed need, canine companions that are reasonably healthy in mind, body -- and in their genetic inventories.