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Just because someone proudly brags that their puppy is a pedigree and it’s registered by a kennel club doesn’t necessarily mean that their puppy is any better than yours. Being registered by a kennel club doesn’t automatically mean that the puppy is of superior quality to one which isn’t, the kennel club will register any puppy whose parents were registered and those parents were registered because their parents were registered, and so it goes on. Registration by a kennel club simply means that you filled in a form and paid your money to keep the chain of registration going.

What does the pedigree mean?

Again apply to the kennel club, fill in a form, pay your money and they will access their database and look for the long list of names of your puppy’s parents, grand parents, great grand parents e.t.c, as many of them and as far back as you wish to pay for. A pedigree is really just nothing more than a family tree that we humans can trace back to find our relatives; the dog hasn’t had to meet any specific requirements for behaviour, temperament, health or appearance.

Every single year there are thousands of litters which are registered by the kennel club with the majority of these puppies being poor quality and defiantly not worthy of showing. So if a breeder is offering puppies for a ridiculous amount of money just because they are pedigree and are kennel club registered don’t be fooled into thinking you are getting something special because you probably aren’t.

Do the papers prove the puppy is purebred?

Unfortunately not, purebred simply means that the ancestors can be traced back for many generations and they all have the same set of fixed genes. Fixed genes are what give the dog its colour; size, type of coat e.t.c, and having these genes are what makes the puppy a purebred, if the puppy doesn’t have these genes then the registration papers don’t mean anything.

Just because a puppy has papers doesn’t mean they are right or true, for example if the owner has two German Shepard for breeding but the female accidentally gets out and the mixed breed dog from down the road mates with her if the breeder is dishonest there is nothing stopping her from filling in the registration papers and claiming that her boxer male is the father. If the puppies take after their mum then the breeder may get away with it, and these puppies while having registration and pedigree are far from purebred puppies.

What are pedigrees and registration good for?

Pedigrees and registration papers are only really useful for the conscientious breeder; a breeder will use the pedigree to trace back the origins of a dog before considering breeding them. They will check the pedigrees to make sure that they aren’t breeding two dogs that are closely related, they also use them to check out temperament, physical build and health of as many ancestors as they can.