Club History

Date Summary

2005

Pumi owners in the US had been meeting at the American Rare Breed Association’s Cherry Blossom shows in Washington, DC or Maryland in April for a few years and began to discuss whether to form a club.  Chris Levy argued that there weren’t enough people to form a Board of Directors, much less a full club.  Others argued that it was important for education of potential and new Pumi owners and would provide a point of contact for AKC.   Eventually everyone agreed that it was time to form a club.

Prior to the 2005 ARBA shows they agreed to set up the club and would designate one of the ARBA shows as their national specialty show.   There were 8 Pumik entered at the show.  Solveig Bergkvist sent some trophies from Sweden in honor of our first National Specialty Show and others donated old trophies they had around the house.

The first club meeting was held at the hotel that weekend. Those in attendance were Tom & Chris Levy (OR), Edmond & Toshiko Blausten (VA), Mary Reardon (OH), Judy Ganoe (OR),  Diane Bushwick-Klauber & Aaron Klauber (Jr member) (NY), Kathy Donovan (CT), and Rica & Bo Fabrycy (NJ).  Officers and Board members were elected.  President was Chris Levy, Vice President was Mary Reardon, Secretary Diane Bushwick-Klauber, Treasurer Rica Fabrycy, and Board members Edmond Blausten, Tom Levy, and Judy Ganoe.  It was agreed that Edmond would file incorporation papers in Nevada and the club would quickly put together a Constitution and Bylaws using AKC’s sample.  It was agreed that all members at that meeting would pay an initial fee of $50 to get a treasury started.  It was also agreed that other Pumi owners across the US would be invited to join the new club and charter membership would extend for 6 months.

Club Name

Probably the biggest debate at the meeting was around what to name the club.  The “Pumi Club of America” was discarded because there was only one letter difference between that and the Puli Club of America and they would share the initials of PCA which also included the Poodle Club of America.  The “American Pumi Club” was suggested, and Edmond Blausten argued that they aren’t American Pumik, they’re Hungarian Pumik.  So a compromise was reached to call the new club the “Hungarian Pumi Club of America”.  It does still confuse people today because the name of the breed (at least in the US and most other countries) is “Pumi” not “Hungarian Pumi”.  But that is a small price to pay.

Charter Members

Below are the charter members of the HPCA.  An asterisk (*) indicates that this person is still a member of the HPCA.

Alexa Maros* (HI) and Jacque Martini* (CA) joined in 2005 soon after the charter period ended.

2006

Not much activity occurred in the club after the initial formation.  The second National Specialty was designated with the ARBA shows again in April.  A few months before April, ARBA changed the date to May, and soon changed it to June, upsetting everyone’s plans with the constantly changing date.  The National Specialty was held successfully in June, but at the Annual Meeting everyone agree that we didn’t want to be subject to ARBA’s capricious dates.  The club agreed that an independent specialty show would be best and approved having it in Oregon in 2007.

That year Sandy & Jim Lockwood joined the club, along with Asa* and Michael* Anden.

2007

The AKC decided to allow FSS breeds to compete in companion and performance events.  The HPCA sent AKC a letter requesting they be allowed to compete in companion events and another letter for performance events with justification that the Pumi was a herding breed.  They were allowed to compete as of January 1,  2008.

The National Specialty (which was named “Pumifest” by Jan Heron and it stuck) included a National Specialty Show on Saturday at the Polk County Fairgrounds in Rickreall, OR with a banquet at Novak’s Hungarian Restaurant in Albany, OR, on Saturday night.  Sunday was our first herding instinct testing (not AKC) at Brigand’s Hideout in Battle Ground, WA.

More coming!   Stay tuned!