I am writing this letter to anyone who can help in the behalf of my mother Johna Christensen, being discriminated by the American Kennel Club.

My mother was born with her arm shorter than normal and with her hand missing on her left side. She has been down many times in her life, and now this is from the American Kennel Club that she cannot compete in the obedience trial with her AKC-registered dog on her right side. The rules say only to the left, but they are not able to perform that way, even though the dog performs the required elements of the competition on the right side.

Living with her most of my life, it is unfamiliar for her to coordinate any task in her daily living from the left side due to her thinking pattern. It is artificial, unnatural, and a deviation, one that her dog has also learned while living with her.

My mother has spent years training her dog for obedience and agility, which makes her happy. She is a Holocaust survivor from World War II, and wrote a 40,000 word manuscript as a six-year-old escaping from Nazi occupation. My mother must not be discriminated against anymore.

This is a complete debacle to civil rights, to what is correct, proper, and humanely intelligent. We would like to change the rules for the physically challenged from the AKC, and to waiver so all can compete.

Please e-mail any directions we may go, and what can we do? Send responses to cbjeep@attbi.com or johna@pioneernet.net.

My mother lives in Oak Harbor and quotes from Steven Spielberg, “I don’t have to live with conditions, I can change them.”

Clint Boren

Issaquah