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AKC/CKC Papers:
By Martin Wahl
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 AKC
verification practices
AKC/CKC
breed rules
How
does inbreeding cause problems?
OFA
hip certificates
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The AKC and CKC Certificates:
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This is an original AKC
registration certificate. It's all you get for your money. A little piece of
paper with a beautiful AKC logo and the name of your dog and it's parents. That's it. And it's all anybody needs in America to become a breeder, and start another puppy mill. The actual
size is 4" by 8.5" (just the right
size for toilet paper).
On the back is a transfer request form, very handy to fill out
and send in (so AKC can quickly collect another registration fee).
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The AKC/CKC insist that every new owner must get a new registration
and pay the full fee again, - and again, every time the dog changes ownership.
And it doesn't even include a certified
pedigree (however unreliable), which
again costs an additional hefty fee (FCI registration certificates usually
include a reliable 3-5 generation certified pedigree at no extra cost). FCI
registries such as the SV
will issue its Registration
Certificate only once for each puppy
(to the original breeder) for about the same fee as the AKC. After that, the
papers stay with the dog. When the dog is being sold, the seller must enter the
new owner in the space provided on the original
papers, without additional fee.
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The CKC certificate is very
similar to the AKC certificate, except it's 7 by 10.5 inches, has a tattoo
number (required in Canada) and it gives the parent's (foreign) registration numbers. Plus,
it can be folded (doubled-up) for use as toilet paper. Other than that, it's
just as unreliable and useless as the AKC paper, but needed to become a
backyard breeder or start your own puppy mill.
Here too, on the back is a very handy transfer request form, but
don't forget to send in the $12.50 to 25.- fee ($50
for non-members). This does NOT include the pedigree, that's another $ 21.- to 42.- ($74.- for non members).
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Even if the AKC had some
sort of a breed code, it has no system to verify, no means of controlling or
policing anything a breeder does. (Unlike the SV
which has a "breed warden"
in every local club in Germany (over 2200), and every SV judge routinely checks a dog’s tattoo number
before every entry into any show or trial) As a result, a breeder in America can do anything he/she pleases. That may be: applying valid
registration papers to several different dogs, registering several more puppies
in a litter than were actually born, (to either sell the extra registration
certificates or use them later, on dogs obtained from Humane societies,
farmers, SPCA's, garage sales, etc.), use one dog
with good hips to get several other dogs with bad hips OFA certified. Even show one proven show dog in many shows and
apply the championship points to one or several lesser dogs that couldn't win
any show points on their own. It’s all made possible by the lack of tattoo requirements.
Not having to tattoo any dogs is the same as not having license plates on any
car. Just imagine the police trying to deal with American traffic if no car had
license plates.
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This is an AKC
"certified" pedigree (actual size 8.5 by 11.5 inches). It has the
most beautiful all gold AKC logo and 3 generations of ancestral names and
registration numbers. That's it again. It does certify two things: 1 - the
fee was paid, and 2 - it's the same information that the AKC has in their
'official Stud Book records'. Does it really matter whether the official
records were compiled from information supplied by backyard breeders and
puppy mills?
You can check any foreign sounding names to see if they are
German sounding American, or German working or show
bloodlines.
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AKC/CKC breed rules
Because the AKC and
CKC both try to accommodate about 140 different breeds, their breed requirements
have to be very simple. Anyone with an AKC/CKC registered female dog, or just
with an AKC or CKC registration certificate (never mind the dog), and
sufficient funds to pay for the registration of a litter (which does not
include the registration of the individual puppy), can be a breeder and get a
litter registered.
There are no other
requirements. No need for tattooing a dog in America, or for hip certificates,
temperament tests, gun tests, minimum training, or any minimum requirement.
Worst of all, the AKC and CKC will allow any inbreeding, such as
father-daughter, brother-sister (in people, that would be called
"incest"), and will register those puppies as pure-bred without indicating
the inbreeding on their registration certificates. Thus, there
are likely generations of repeated inbreedings in AKC
and CKC bred dogs.
It’s simple: Most
hereditary disorders are caused by "recessive" genes. As long as one
of the partners has a good gene, it will override the bad copy of the other
partner. But if both partners are from the same family, they have the same gene
"pool", which means the same types and numbers of recessive genes.
And of course, bringing together the same "bad" recessive genes must bring out all of their
hereditary disorders.
The veterinary
profession must be aware, more than any one
else, of the suffering of the American dog population as a result of all that
inbreeding. But none of them ever say anything against inbreeding. They appear
to be in no hurry to change anything, because they benefit by raking in
millions of dollars off of the owners of sick and crippled dogs.
OFA hip certificates
Some people will
argue that the OFA (Orthopedic Foundation for Animals,
Inc.) is more reliable than the German "a"
stamp, because OFA will only certify a dog after it is 24 month old. It’s
debatable, because dogs are known to be finished growing at 12, not 24 month of
age. However, there are other, more prevalent facts that need to be considered.
After
breeding for 12 years, I have had more than 100 of my own dogs x-rayed, and
have had many puppy owners discuss their x-ray experiences and puppy guarantee
claims with me. This taught me that veterinarians will come up with as many
different HD (Hip Dysplasia) judgments as the number
of x-rays they take of a given dog. (So, if your veterinarian diagnoses your
dog to have HD, simply go to the next veterinarian, until you get an x-ray that
can be OFA certified.) I have never been able to figure out how they do that.
Also, I once had a 17 month old dog with an OFA preliminary "good"
shipped to Germany (for training), where it was refused the "a" stamp
(German SV hip certificate).
What’s
most disturbing, is the fact that North American veterinarians are not
accustomed to, and sometimes refuse to certify the tattoo number of the dogs
they x-ray, because most AKC
registered dogs don’t have a tattoo anyway. As a result, anyone could
take a dog with good hips to a veterinarian and claim it to be any other dog
they want OFA certified. This makes the entire OFA
system as unreliable and therefore as useless as AKC certificates.
If you have a
problem believing any of the above, you may want to read the book "The
Puppy Report" by Larry Shook
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Copyright 2001 Martin Wahl, Real GSD. RealGSD1@netscape.net.
All
rights reserved. Please view his site Real GSD.
