AKC Family Dog – March-April 2026

Summary

AKC Family Dog's March/April 2026 community issue leads with Border Collies: cover dog TBird Kenna, owned and bred by Barbara Lloyd of Thunderbird of the 4 Directions. Inside, Crisis Response Canines earn the AKC Humane Fund ACE Award, and AKC Meet the Breeds drew 38,000 visitors to New York's Javits Center.

Managing editor Phil Dzikiy frames the issue around a simple idea: a leash is an entry point. Kathy Santo's Training & Behavior column makes the case concrete, describing a Labrador Retriever named Moose whose owner Linda earned a neighbor's compliment after months of heeling work. Santo teaches in Waldwick, New Jersey, and calls the neighborhood "the most underrated training space you have."

Three features carry the theme. "Work Hard, Play Hard" profiles Border Collies through trainer Barbara Lloyd and agility competitor Lindsey Anne-Marie, whose Road Runner made 2026 WAO Team USA. "Canine Congregations" tours Corgi beach days, Goldens in Golden, Colorado, and the Basset Hound Boardwaddle in Ocean City, New Jersey. "Always Ready" reports on the ACE-winning Crisis Response Canines, a New Jersey nonprofit fielding 130-plus certified teams across 20 states.

Service columns do the practical work. Dr. Jerry Klein, AKC chief veterinary officer, explains flea and tick prevention and warns that permethrin is toxic to cats. Mary Burch walks readers from Canine Good Citizen to AKC Trick Dog. Elsewhere: the Afghan Hound centennial, the 4-H Dog Project, Agility League team rituals, and 15-year-old Chihuahuas Teddy and Bear.

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Content Guide

▸ Cover Story

p.22 · Work Hard, Play Hard

Sassafras Patterdale, CPDT-KA, follows Border Collies from Wyoming sheep fields to agility rings. Barbara Lloyd, who breeds Thunderbird of the 4 Directions Border Collies, describes farm work as "constant awareness" rather than motion, and says she cares more about whether a dog can fix a mistake than avoid one. Agility handler Lindsey Anne-Marie recounts winning the 2025 Americas & Caribe Large Dog Championship with Road Runner, then rebuilding Maze Runner's ring confidence after fear issues appeared at age three. Dr. Patricia McConnell weighs in on nature vs nurture.

p.28 · Canine Congregations

Jen Reeder reports on breed-specific meetups. Michelle Starr drives from Carmel, California, to the Pismo Beach Corgi Nation Vacation with Pembroke Welsh Corgi Bailey and Blue. "Goldens in Golden" filled downtown Golden, Colorado, with Golden Retrievers from every state except Rhode Island; Joy Meadows started it after her Golden, Waffle. Valerie Mazzei of Tri-State Basset Hound Rescue sends 500-plus Basset Hounds down the Ocean City, New Jersey, boardwalk. Andy Honda runs monthly Rhodesian Ridgeback meetups in Central Park, and Tripawds has 25,000 members.

p.34 · Always Ready

Alyssa Leli profiles Crisis Response Canines, the New Jersey nonprofit that won the AKC Humane Fund Award for Canine Excellence in the new Teams category. Co-founders Andrea Hering and John Hunt deploy more than 130 certified canine teams across 20 states to shootings, fatal accidents, and disasters. The piece shows how the dogs work: Axel choosing one of three women who had just lost her father; handlers teaching dogs to disengage and rest. Hunt recalls Axel throwing up after an hour and a half at a Nashville funeral.

p.38 · Gotta Pet 'Em All

Photo essay from AKC Meet the Breeds, held February 7 and 8, 2026, at New York's Javits Center. More than 140 breeds appeared, and 38,000-plus dog lovers came to pet them, watch demo-ring presentations, and collect breed information. Captions name Shih Tzu, Norwich Terrier, Portuguese Water Dog, and the NYPD and MTA police canine units on site. Editors invite readers to email their own photos to familydog@akc.org with "Meet the Breeds Photo" in the subject line.

▸ Health & Training

p.12 · Protection From Those Common Foes: Fleas and Ticks

Dr. Jerry Klein, AKC chief veterinary officer, covers how dogs pick up fleas and ticks, why prevention beats treatment on cost, and which product formats exist: spot-ons, chewables, shampoos, medicated collars. He lists what prevention stops, including Lyme disease, ehrlichiosis, anaplasmosis, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, babesiosis, flea allergy dermatitis, and anemia in puppies. The safety section is the most useful part: permethrin is toxic and potentially fatal to cats, and dog doses are wrong for other species. Daily tick checks remain essential.

p.16 · It Takes a Village

Trainer Kathy Santo argues the neighborhood is the training space owners undervalue. She opens with Linda and Moose, a young field-line Labrador Retriever who lunged at people and cars until months of heeling work produced a compliment from a neighbor who used to cross the street. Santo's method: start small and reward calm observation, keep enough distance that the dog can still think, respect non-dog people, thank the helpers. She calls the payoff "proofing."

p.19 · Tricks of the Trade

Mary Burch, Ph.D., maps the route from AKC Canine Good Citizen to AKC Trick Dog. The 2025 virtual Trick Dog competition supplies the examples: Elizabeth Berthold-Davis and her Russell Terrier, Cricket, won with a "Fix-It, Cricket" routine involving a toy refrigerator; Heidi Armstrong's search-and-rescue All-American Dog Cheza jumped rope; Melissa Quintana-Mitchell's Brussels Griffon, Hashbrown, wore pirate props. Burch lists the 10 Novice tricks, explains CGC+5, and notes the next competition opens August 3.

▸ News & Departments

p.4 · Paws Up!

Reader photo page. Ten dogs get names and hometowns: GOLDEBUG of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina; Duncan of Chesterfield, Missouri; Akame and Tohru of Battle Creek, Michigan; Miss Reba Jo of Kettering, Ohio; Franchi of Montrose, New York; Shep of Portland, Maine; Charlie and Cozy of Nipomo, California; Pepper of Mount Laurel, New Jersey; Rose and Boomer of McKinney, Texas; Tucker of Rubicon, Wisconsin. Editors ask for high-resolution emailed photos and note submissions become AKC property.

p.8 · Paw Prints

News section. A study published in iScience in December links teenage dog ownership to better mental-health and behavioral scores, with gut microbiota as one proposed mechanism; researchers tracked 13-year-olds in the Tokyo metropolitan area to age 14. Indy, a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, won the Astra Award for Best Performance in a Horror or Thriller, beating Ethan Hawke and Alison Brie. Penny the Doberman Pinscher won Westminster's 150th show over 2,500 dogs. Also: Alice Hoffman's essay collection and a dog-movie Pup Quiz.

p.11 · A Century of Elegance

Bud Boccone marks the Afghan Hound's 100th anniversary as an AKC-recognized breed with three photographs from AKC files. One shows Marion Foster-Florsheim, an Afghan Hound breeder of the 1940s who flew with the Women Airforce Service Pilots and received the Congressional Gold Medal. Another is Nilijo of Prides Hill, bred by banker Quincy Adams McKean, which appeared on the August 1936 AKC Gazette cover. The third notes that Picasso's 50-foot Daley Plaza sculpture was inspired by his Afghan Hound, Kabul.

▸ AKC Community

p.42 · Inside the 4-H Dog Project

Meghan Cutler and Jessica Vasallo explain 4-H, the USDA-sponsored youth organization behind Head, Heart, Hands, and Health. The Dog Project has kids train their own dog, or a friend's, through 4-H classes, shows, and record books. AKC Sports Services liaison Megan Green connects the two groups. Youth get free Purebred Alternative Listing and Canine Partners registrations, plus free Canine Good Citizen and Trick Dog titles. Putnam County, Florida, 4-H wrote a 17-chapter manual that AKC Public Education turned into six digital presentations.

p.44 · Lively in League

Penny Leigh, who directs the AKC Agility League, reports from teams that treat fun as a training tool. Erin Rezmer, Spirit Captain for a team at For Your K9 outside Chicago, invented name-label icebreakers, a Love Theme night, and an Oscar-night awards show with acceptance speeches. Nancy Smith's Antelope Valley, California, team ran a Christmas-tree-shaped course while carrying a full Solo cup. Pam Robbins of the Durham Kennel Club in North Carolina runs all-day meets where members keep score and coach each other.

p.48 · The End of the Leash

"Senior Chihuahuas that really move," as told to Alyssa Leli. Suzanne Bauman's Chihuahuas, Teddy and Bear, are 15-year-old littermates. Teddy still competes in agility and ranked among the oldest dogs at the 2025 AKC National Agility Championship. Both dogs take daily walks up and down a hill, which Bauman credits for keeping them active and healthy. The page also advertises the 23rd edition of The New Complete Dog Book, covering standards for more than 200 AKC breeds.

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Editor's Take

The community framing earns its keep. Kathy Santo's walk-as-classroom column and the Crisis Response Canines profile both argue something specific, that a trained dog changes the block and not just the household, and both back it with named people and hard numbers. The weak link is the Paw Prints news section, where the teen mental-health study and the Astra and Westminster items read like rewritten press releases. Meet the Breeds gets four pages of captions and no reporting. Buy the issue for pages 16 through 35; skim 8 through 11. The trick-dog and flea-and-tick columns hold up better than anything in the front of the book.

Strengths
• Kathy Santo's neighborhood-training piece hands owners a usable method, not theory.
• Crisis Response Canines profile names handlers, dogs, and deployments, including Uvalde and Nashville.
• Agility League captains describe specific rituals: Olympic openings, Oscar nights, Christmas-tree courses.

Weaknesses
• Paw Prints items summarize press releases and carry little original reporting.
• Meet the Breeds gets four pages of photo captions with no reporter on the ground.

Verdict: Recommended — Three features and two training columns justify the cover price; the front-of-book news pages you can skim.