CKC / AKC Dog Registry Issues

          I have for many years argued and tried to prove a point with the North American Dog Registration issues. This is mostly applicable to working breeds of dogs but it really applies to all of them. Perhaps with the working breeds, such as hunting or K9 protection dogs, it is most important, because not only the selection of their confirmation is at stake, but also their ability to work and have the desired drive and nerves for their purpose aka job.
In most of the world, purebred and registered working dogs have to prove themselves or let's say be evaluated based on their confirmation at a breed show or possibly 2 and have to pass a trial tailored to their future purpose. For example, German Shepherd Dogs have to complete very complex and hard Tracking, Obedience and Protection trial called Schutzhund. Hunting dogs have to pass hunting trials again tailored to their breed disciplines and so on. They have to reach a certain number of points in order to be allowed to pass.        
           Different breeds have different standards and sometimes different countries have different expectations, but that is already irrelevant and a topic for a separate discussion, the bottom line is they must perform before they are eligible to be allowed to be a "breeding dog" and have a litter of registered puppies.
This sort of systematic selection allows for the development of fine and healthy animals with a desire to work and have genetic predispositions for their future jobs. This is a very important and lengthy job that takes many many generations of selecting the right dogs.

          Now with this explained, what do we need in North America to be able to breed some of the awesome breeds like let's say German Shorthair Pointers? Better sit down for this, We Don't Need Anything at all, heck we can even take 2 dogs with a wrong number of teeth, 10 cm below standard, 20 lb over or under and one that pees himself at a gunshot and sell them as registered GSP or GSD! This practice IMO greatly diminished the quality and health of all working breeds in this part of the world. Golden retrievers are good examples, CKC German Shepherds are the same and the list goes on (Pugs with respiratory problems, Bichons without teeth, etc.) Yes, you can still find a good dog if you sift thru their pedigrees and pick the right parents perhaps, but that contradicts the whole purpose of the registry itself. They all should be able to do it. Yes, there are still people like us who try to select the right dogs, go to the other side of the world to import quality animals, work them, title them and then maybe breed some, but realistically and mathematically we have no chance to keep the breed going and even sustain let alone better their quality in the long run, because there will always be 100 times more back yard breeders and puppy mills who will simply breed without any selection and add those numbers to the same genetic pool, or simply put, undo all the hard work that has been done in Europe in some cases over several centuries. This leads me to a question, "what exactly is the CKC and AKC registry really for?

 



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