THE UTILITY AND IMPORTANCE OF PEDIGREE
by Ioana Milea
After many discussions about what it means to be or not to be a dog, about the status of a dog with / without pedigree in the vast canine masses of all races, colors, varieties, sizes, we decided to point out and synthesize some important aspects in viewing the reader’s point of view on this subject.
Not many times have we heard or read:
“I want a breed, but I do not need a pedigree, because I do not care to go to shows.”
“The baby would cost me 200 euros, but if I take it with a pedigree it costs me 600 euros.”
“Pedigree Type A? What is it? The dogs that did the mating have both a pedigree, so they will have a pedigree and their chicks, are not they? ”
In fact, in Romania, the quintile culture is so low that the vast majority of “normal” people do not know exactly what a pedigree means, what it serves and how it gets.
So we are trying to make some light on this subject.
What is pedigree?
The pedigree is that certificate of enrollment of a dog in the Book of Origin which, in Romania, is issued by A.Ch.R. (The Romanian Chinological Association).
In it are recorded the identification data of a dog, the breed belonging to, his genealogy, identification data of the owner and the breeder.
About a dog that owns a pedigree knows exactly the date of birth, parents, grandparents, grandparents and grandparents: one can know who, among ancestors, was a champion of beauty or work in Romania or abroad. It can be known who produced that dog, and who was the owner of the mother at the time of the birth of the chicken. Of course, the subject can not be bypassed by any possibility of controversy even in this case, but this is theoretically the way things should stay.
Pedigree MODEL issued by the Romanian Origin Book of A.Ch.R.
Some pedigrees issued by other European countries may contain data on aptitude tests, results of exams to determine congenital pathologies, and in some cases the whole nest of the dog.
Thus, with so much information that a single document can provide, pedigree is an extremely important act. Of course, this happens if the pedigree is “fair”, it is not the fruit of a delusion about any of this information – but I am convinced that the vast majority of the breeders are made up of serious and correct people, taking all the time considering that the activity of raising dogs is a hobby, not a means of living.
What is the pedigree for?
We start by pointing out that pedigree is not a “certificate of belonging to an elite” and that it is not “less dog” an animal that does not possess this document.
However, a dog without pedigree can not be considered a “purebred dog”, even if morphologically, that specimen is identical to the dogs of the breed “should” belong to.
This means that a dog without a pedigree can not participate in official cynological manifestations – exhibitions, work samples, championships, etc. (there are also special situations governed by the rules of chinology) and that it is extremely difficult to find a partner to mount, because no serious owner (or owner) will ever accept to mount his own dog with an unlicensed copy.
The only possibility is to find a copy which, in turn, does not have a pedigree – but, we are asking, to “reproduce” the CE? – Dogs about which nothing is known and on which no selection has been made, neither from the point of view of health (the most important aspect of all) nor from the point of view of character? It is not essential that all dogs be beautiful, but HEALTHY and BALANCED, yes!
Random matings can not provide any guarantee in this regard, so it is advisable to avoid it.
The pedigree must provide the guarantee of selection of the chicken that we buy, and today it certifies that those dogs used in the mount belong to the breed, without the intersection of other breeds or mites.
It is indeed an important thing, even though it would be considered only a very small detail of everything that should be a pedigree, a small step in addition to giving the pedigree the importance of a vast certificate, which also includes elements related to all the results obtained from examinations for pathologies in which that breed is predisposed.
If the pedigree contained these items, today the buyer of a chicken would have been relieved of doing more often complicated investigations to find out whether the wanted chick, grandparents, grandparents were affected by the hereditary force.
With the little bills we pay for a chicken without a pedigree, to which we add a bit (or we do not add any more), we can have a copy as needed, with everything, IDENTITY … and why not do we do that? There are so many breeders who offer free chicks with small appearance defects or want to exclude them from breeding because they do not bring any improvement to the breed! We just need to inform and look for patience.
All this could be considered difficult by the profane who decides to buy the cute fluff ball he has been looking for in the showcase of an animal shop.
Very often people think pedigree is useless, because they are convinced that it only serves those who attend dog shows. There are other cases where the buyer is told “sure, the chicken has a pedigree,” but no one explains what he uses, so the future owner puts it in a pocket, and his home looks into a drawer, considering it a piece of paper from which he does not understand anything.
If our baby is the son of Fufi and Bubi, who in turn are the sons of Lord and Lady, whose ancestors were Tom and Blacky – what information can we get? None! This is why the Romanian Chinological Association offers the possibility for the breeder / owner of the female to obtain the famous “kennel name” or “affix”, or, in other words, the dog’s “surname”.
When buying a baby called “Bubi de Icsbox”, we know exactly who should be responsible if, for example, we are experiencing a genetic problem, because the kennel “Icsbox” has an identifiable name. So we can begin to investigate, to try to understand whether the problem stems from one specimen or another and to regulate the situation for a possible breeding. If we only know that his parents call him Lord and Lady, how can we inform about this situation and not forward it to other copies in the future?
In conclusion:
If there is no NEED, passion or desire to have as a companion a breed, the best solution is to try to direct our attention to a faithful companion who would love us for all life, the wonderful and noble the world of Metis dogs.
Metisias can give us everything we normally want from a dog – but without claiming to be anything but I am. All dogs have the same dignity and the same affective value. If the pure breed really desires, it must be certified, guaranteed; if not, there are thousands of lovable dogs, and unfortunately, we are waiting for them in the shelters for dogs.
If, on the other hand, we really like one or more features of a breed dog (aesthetic beauty or temperamental features), then it is right and natural to buy a dog with official documents, because ONLY a dog with pedigree is “really” a purebred dog.
The others are totally and totally equivalent to metis (their commercial and animal value is exactly the same), but which, unfortunately, are often sold instead of being offered free of charge on the grounds that they are “of race.”
In reality things are not that way.
The “purebred dog”, even legally, is synonymous with the “dog with papers”. Physical appearance does not matter at all.
I often remember a funny story told by a known couple of years ago: her German shepherd escaped from the yard and had a romantic adventure with a semi-boxer. In the nest that was born after this adventure, along with the 5 German shepherd-boxers of strange forms, there was a male that looked like a pure German shepherd. He could defy all breeders and referees with the beauty of that specimen. But he was a metis, and if he had been reproduced, he would have passed on to his descendants characteristics belonging to both the German shepherd breed and the characteristics of his semi-boxer mother, just because he looks like a true German shepherd. This can be a real or imagined situation.
This is why the aspect does not matter, but only the acts that are able to prove that the parents, grandparents and grandparents of a chicken belonged to ALL of a certain race.
Therefore, if you really want to buy a dog that resembles the breed or on the “non-pedigree breed dog”, at least it is advisable not to reproduce. It would give birth to difficult to put chickens, with strong genetic potentials (because there was no health check before the monsters were made), potentially impure (because no one can guarantee that its whole blood line existed only breed dogs).
All of this adds, last but not least, the hard work of selecting people who have devoted their knowledge and life to form, maintain and improve a race.
So, we can say “yes” to the dog without pedigree, which has the same dog dignity as any other, with one exception – not to produce offspring.
Further, for those who have passed this step and chose a pedigree breed, they should look for a true breed dog with a real pedigree, looking for a serious breeder, who does not mislead the papers and who makes a real quinotechnical selection, and not commercial!
How can we do this?
A good way is to contact the territorial quinological association in the area where we live, and an even better way is to contact the breed club that specializes only on that breed.