When we posted over 2,500 pictures from Westminster, we wanted everyone to see what a great experience it was to attend a dog show.
Unfortunately, not everyone agreed. Cheryl Gerzabek (GSMDCA Director, past SCONE VP) and Laurie Carmody (Swissy Club of New England Treasurer) have been discussing taking ambush pictures of Oscar (excerpts below). As individuals in club leadership positions, they should not participate in taking pictures of any dog show participants or attendees and portraying them in a negative light. What if those women whose pictures were taken negatively were prospective swissy owners?
To make matters worse, a fake Facebook account was created last week to illegally impersonate and harrass me. The five friends of the fake account are Brian Ullom, Jamie Scott Ullom, Billie Anderson, Cheryl Gerzabek and Laurie Carmody. Brian was a fellow swissy owner who was out of work after losing his job and had a child to support. I felt bad for him so I hired him for two weekends, as more of a dogsitter than a handler. I had to get away for those weekends, and my regular handlers were on vacation. Ordinarily I would not have paid more money to use a handler in training, but needed to go away. Once I stopped using Brian, I have been harassed non-stop. Being involved with impersonating a former client is not the way to get more work. Billie is involved with Cheryl’s handler.
We believe the main reason Cheryl and Laurie are upset was our article on Meet The Breed. We requested a public posting of the event, rotation of participants, and the ability to allow a diverse selection of swissy owners to participate with breeders like other breeds and clubs do. We also believe that any breeder who is not breeding with final clearances should lose the ability to participate for that year. This has riled up those who stand to lose from such a system. The existing system has apparently allowed one family to take up 75% of the booth spots of that day as others were turned away. Instead of opening up the process, high barriers were added to the newly issued selection criteria to prevent others from participating. Oscar and I do not expect to ever be able to participate after trying to change the current system, but have asked for the ability to allow others the opportunity to participate and promote breeding standards. (A fan recently posted a great suggestion for a system where the swissy rescue volunteers run the booth, since they are spending the time cleaning up everyone’s mess.)
Either way, we simply request that these five individuals forget that we exist and find some other way to occupy their time.
