Animal breeders that falsify registration papers
Unfortunately there are still some very unscrupulous animal breeders around. They range from dog breeders, horse breeders, cat breeders and even guppy breeders. These are the types of people that are in the animal breeding business strictly for the money. They will often have a female of what ever they are breeding get pregnant and they are not sure of the father of the offspring. They are the type that will use the registration papers of a deceased animal and claim that the offspring was father by it. They will also mix bloodlines of different breeds to get the result they want – more money for the offspring while claiming the animals are purebred.
A friend of mine about 10 years ago acquired a young small breed dog from a local dog rescue group. I asked her what breed it was and she said Jack Russell. Not only did the dog look nothing like a Jack Russell (it looked like a Chihuahua with the coloring of a Doberman Pincher) my friend also knew this. She said the dog came from a breeder that was caught mixing in Chihuahua and Miniature Pincher bloodlines into her Jack Russell’s to make them smaller to get higher prices for them. The AKC found out about it and all of her dogs got their registration papers revoked.
Normally most pet owners would not care about registration papers of any animal but when you pay $400 and up for any animal you should expect that the registration papers for that animal to be accurate and honest. For dogs and cats the high price is not for the animal but you are paying for the registration papers. Dogs and cats without registration papers are found at the local pound everyday at a fraction of the cost of being a registered animal. Horses are slightly different since you are also paying for any training that the animal has had.
So how do you protect yourself from these breeders? First if the breeder is selling AKC registered dogs or puppies you can check with the AKC. They also have a list of breeding violations located in their monthly board meeting minutes. You can view them online here
Here is an excerpt from their August meeting minutes:
During the month of July the DNA program resulted in the correction of 312 litter registrations, affecting 564 registered dogs. Additionally, the registrations of 211 litters, including 349 registered dogs, were converted to conditional registration and the registrations of 17 litters were canceled, affecting 28 registered dogs. 6 litters were canceled as a result of impure breeding, affecting 10 registered dogs, and one litter was canceled as a result of an inquiry.
It looks like the AKC has been taking advantage of DNA testing like most of the other animal associations have done over the past 10 years, good for them. If you check with many of the other animal breed clubs you will find that most of them now require DNA tests prior to registration. Often it means no more than sending in a lock of hair along with a test kit fee.
