Who We Are and What We Do
CCCI Welfare is an annually appointed committee of the Chow Chow Club, Inc., the AKC-recognized national parent club of the Chow Chow breed in the U.S. The committee is focused on the well-being of the purebred Chow Chow as a pet in today's society. The 2012 committee chair is Elaine Albert.
The committee is small but its scope is large. Some of our functions are:
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to provide information about the Chow Chow breed to Chow owners, the public, animal shelters and veterinarians.
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to provide a central contact point for people seeking placement for abandoned or unwanted Chows and those who would like to adopt them
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to maintain a directory of Chow rescue volunteers
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to provide information, resources and support to Chow rescue volunteers and other individuals aiding homeless Chow Chows.
The Welfare Fund
The CCCI Welfare Fund provides financial assistance to rescue volunteers to help offset the costs of basic medical services needed to make homeless purebred Chow Chows healthy and ready for placement. These services include spaying or neutering, vaccinations, heartworm testing, heartworm treatment and entropion correction.
The Fund is made up entirely of your donations, sales of merchandise and the proceeds of our fund-raising events. It has no corporate sponsors nor receives any government support.
The Fund has provided several thousand dollars a year in financial assistance to volunteers since it began in 1994. However, it has never had anywhere near enough money to cover all the qualified requests we receive. Most volunteers must wait months while we raise the money they need. We desperately need your support to help us help more Chows!
How You Can Help
Donate to the CCCI Welfare Fund! No donation is too small and every little bit helps!
Checks or money orders (U.S. funds) should be made out to the Chow Chow Club, Inc.'s Welfare Committee and sent to:
CCCI Welfare
383 Hoffman Lane
Hauppauge NY 11788
Donations may be made online via PayPal using your credit card.
All donations will be acknowledged.
Watch our Gift Shop for special Chow items whose proceeds go to the Welfare Fund. We also auction donated Chow collectibles on Ebay.
CCCI Welfare Committee History
In 1990, then Chow Chow Club, Inc. President Cody Milligan appointed the first CCCI Welfare committee. The first members of this committee were chair Vicki DeGruy, Christine Cameron, Dr. J. Albert deBlois and Barbara Malone. Intended to address the needs of a Chow Chow population that had grown far beyond anyone's imagination, the committee joined the efforts of several other parent breed clubs working to achieve a greater influence on the owners of dogs outside the circles of the show ring. Over the years, committee members have come and gone, the most recent, along with Vicki, were Ginny Atkinson, Karen Privitello and Kathy Welsh. In 2012, Vicki retired and was replaced by new chair, Elaine Albert.
Our focus has remained the same throughout these years: the well-being of the Chow Chow as a pet in our society. If our primary function could be described in only one word, that word would be education. We teach people how to understand, appreciate and properly care for this unique and intriguing breed of dog.
Our next priority concerns the needs of thousands of abandoned Chow Chows. When the Welfare committee was first appointed, the Chow Chow was the sixth most popular breed in the U.S. with AKC registration figures of mind-boggling proportions: 49,096 in 1987, 50,782 in 1988, 50,150 in 1989, 45,267 in 1990. (We can only guess how many Chows were born during that time but not registered.) The Chow was the "in" breed to have and there were Chows everywhere, especially where we didn't want them to be - in petstores, puppymills, animal shelters and in the hands of owners who weren't committed to caring for them responsibly.
Prior to 1990, these issues weren't being addressed adequately by the Chow Chow Club, Inc. A few individual members and regional Chow clubs, Pru Baxter and the Greater Houston Chow Chow Club, to name only one of each, had "Chow Rescue" programs but without the support of the CCCI. One of the initial goals of the Welfare committee was to find ways for the CCCI to encourage and support Chow rescue efforts.
Barbara Malone surveyed national breed clubs, gathering information on their welfare, rescue and education programs. Some clubs were very active and organized in their welfare projects while others had never considered the concept. Barbara sorted through the information, choosing the best or most practical ideas, many of which make up the committee's procedures today.
Christine Cameron put together and published the first rescue directory, a listing of Chow rescue volunteers and their services. Until then, few volunteers were aware of each other. The directory was a first step in rescue networking and mutual support. Combined with a "how to rescue" manual written by myself, Christine distributed the first CCCI rescue resources to regional clubs and interested individuals.
The CCCI Welfare Hotline was also established in 1990 and continues today. The Hotline functions as a central information source for Chow owners seeking help for their dogs' problems and animal shelters seeking placement help for the Chows in their care. Callers are counseled, sent educational material and/or referred to rescue services or regional clubs and CCCI members in their home areas for further help and information.
The CCCI's Welfare Fund began in 1991. Intended originally to cover the cost of the committee's printing, postage and office supplies, the purpose of the fund was expanded in 1995, by action of the CCCI Board, to help with medical expenses of eligible rescued Chows by providing grants to Chow rescue volunteers and other individuals.
The committee has always believed that educational material should be made available free to the public and your generous donations to the fund have enabled us to do that. The committee's telephone expenses and website, including the Welfare Hotline, have always been donated by the committee members themselves.
Although the committee doesn't operate a shelter or rescue Chows in the name of the Chow Chow Club, Inc., our grant program has supported many rescue groups and individual volunteers by providing them with financial grants and resources like our rescue manual and adoption website. Your donations make it possible for us to continue these critical services.
Gratefully,
The Chow Chow Club, Inc.'s Welfare Committee
