Can your pet donate ONE DOLLAR to any HAITI earthquake fund? If each of the millions of pets living in the US could give just one dollar, we could raise over a million! The Red Cross... your church... There are many groups raising money... Do it now! The need is so URGENT! Thanks

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Hello folks, here it is the middle of June already and schools are out and you are in a vacation mood. Shorter vacations maybe, and nearer home, but in spite of the economy crashing all around us, take a good look around you and see the green every where… the lush foliage, the green grass, the flowers. The rains have washed away the dust of the drought and all the plants are celebrating. So are you planning a vacation trip? Some of you are, your dogs are here or are booked to come. Have you thought about a North Carolina vacation trip? That is how we discovered North Carolina, or my parents did. The summer of l941 we were living in Venezuela where my father was working for Shell, and we could not go back to Holland for home leave, so we took a car trip through Western North Carolina all summer long and fell in love with this part of the world. My mother and sister and I spent the rest of the World War II years in Waynesville and Asheville while my father was off rebuilding the refineries in the Pacific as soon as they were won back. And now many years later, I am back in North Carolina, in Granbar Kennels in Charlotte, and happy to be surrounded by many dogs and many friends. We have everything, cities, ocean, beaches, mountains, lakes, country side. Goodness me, I didn’t mean to sound like a travel agency. I am not going on vacation anywhere. Have to look after your dogs while you are away, and keep the grass mowed so the dogs can play outside in our fields.

Have you seen the big sign on our entrance? Doggie Day Care … it’s all games and time spent with people, which is what most dogs like to do best of all. Just take a look at our Picture Gallery … We now have two staff photographers taking pictures of the canine activity, some of which includes a lot of cuddle time.

We have been the only American Boarding Kennel Association accredited kennel in Charlotte for about twenty years, in spite of some competitor advertising to the contrary. When the Association, ABKA for short, changed its name to Pet Care Services Association, PCSA for short, they also changed their concept of accreditation and changed it into two levels of accreditation. In my dictionary I could not find a description of multi level accreditation. Either you are accredited or not accredited, not a little bit accredited and a little bit more accredited. We really did not want to try to fit into that concept, so we are not pursuing further accreditation with the PCSA. I have included a copy of our letter to the Association. We are not resigning our membership in the Association, or removing the accreditation decals of the past years from our office windows, and we are certainly not lowering our standards. But we stand by our belief that you cannot split accreditation into gold and silver or any other kind of levels and prefer to maintain our level of top quality service independently of split level accreditation. We hope to remain your Kennel of Choice.

June 8, 2009

Pet Care Services Association
1701 E. Pikes Peak Avenue
Colorado Springs, CO  80909

Attn:  Board of Directors

For more than twenty years, we have been Charlotte’s only ABKA accredited kennel.  For approximately ten years of that time, I served as the National Chairman of the VFA Committee and worked diligently to upgrade the whole VFA concept.  Now this concept has changed dramatically.

Today we are faced with the alarming choice of the gold versus silver levels of accreditation which means deciding to be “a little bit” accredited or “a little bit more” accredited.   How can one entity be more accredited than another entity?  The very word “accredited” does not lend itself to split levels. The concept of “leveled accreditation” is a contradiction in terms and therefore an oxymoron.   Either you are accredited or you are not accredited and splitting accreditation into different levels is intrinsically impossible and basically unethical.    For this reason, and after careful consideration, we have decided not to pursue further accreditation with the PCSA.

The ABKA accreditation emblems and certificates of the most recent years will remain posted in our office because we have always been, and will continue to be, very proud of our truly accredited history.

Sincerely,

Peggy Giulini, CKO