The beginning of the year traditionally and logically corresponds to the collection of statistics, figures, data about the elapsed year. It is time to learn some lessons and to assess the work done during the course of the previous year.

I wanted to spend some time observing the activities carried out at our General Secretariat, the daily workload of our whole team in order to be able to provide a deserved follow-up to the many events and other activities organized by our members.

Like every year, the number of dog shows with CACIB keeps increasing to reach 821 as of December 31st, 2010. As a comparison, in 2009, our members organized 792 dog shows.

A total of 836,119 dogs entered these dog shows (among which 18,988 only for the World Dog Show in Herning, Denmark) and the General Secretariat of the FCI homologated no less than 104,609 CACIB (let us point out that these figures are only relatively reliable, since all the results from dog shows organized in 2010 have not yet been received).

There is no doubt that the FCI is an international organization with, for 2010, a total of 23,038 kennel names (vs 22,895 in 2009) granted to breeders from 67 different countries !

The very high number of entries in dog shows has a logical corollary, which is that the number of titles of International Champions keeps very high with a total of 7,776 titles homologated by our offices. N.B. The number of titles of Int. Ch. for the preceding year was 7,293. It appears logical that the title of CIB - 6,564 in total - is the most applied for, followed immediately by the sometimes disparaged CIE with 1,030 homologations. Let us point out here the particularly remarkable activity of Finland - 870 CIB titles, of Russia - 751 and of France - 568. As far as the CIE title is concerned, it is predominantly awarded to Teckels (177), whereas for the CIB, the most rewarded breeds are the Poodles (278), the Teckels (259) and the Miniature Schnauzers (162). Finally, I would blame myself for not mentioning the 108 CIT (25 titles only for the English Setters) and the 53 CIC (races), among which 18 were awarded to Whippets.

In another connection – but still in the field of figures- I do not find it useless to inform you about the audience of our websites: http://www.fci.be and http://www.dogdotcom.be (the latter specifically hosting our e-newsletter). These data will confirm, if necessary, that the Internet is indeed the communication par excellence, the tool which any organization, be it commercial or service-oriented, cannot afford to do without. They will also finally convince you of the increasing popularity of the FCI and of the interest that it raises globally, as well as of the success of the 1st e-newsletter.

Between February 7th and March 14th, 2011, both websites received no less than, respectively 116,052 visits (77,512 unique visitors) and 3,780 visits (3,082 unique visitors). The international character of the FCI is particularly noticeable when one realizes that the website www.fci.be is visited by users from … 144 different countries/territories!! (the FCI has 86 member countries!). The website www.dogdotcom.be, which is only taking its first faltering steps, was visited by users from 96 different countries/territories! The German, Russian, Spanish, Polish and French users are the most frequent users of the www.fci.be website, whereas the German, the English (!!), the Belgian and the French are those who particularly appreciate www.dogdotcom.be.

Should you like it, more figures are available at the General Secretariat of the FCI. We also invite all our national canine organizations - as well as all individuals – to visit our Facebook page.