What A Mess...

[Namara]

So I got to work pretty much by myself tonight because my co-worker spent most of the shift on her cell phone trying to figure out this mess with a litter of GSDs that she recently bred.

My co-worker - we'll call her Mary - is really a backyard breeder. She has a bunch of female GSDs that are AKC registered and she breeds them with whatever good-looking male she comes across that is also AKC registered. She doesn't breed a lot, and when she does, it's not exactly for the betterment of the breed, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, she bred one of her females to a male that belongs to one of her neighbors. The owner of the stud wanted to pick a female from the litter as the stud fee. Puppies are born, 5 survive, only 1 female. They hit the 8-week-old mark a little over a week ago and the female was taken by the owners of the stud dog. All is well and good until Mary gets a letter from the AKC saying she can't register her puppies because the owner of the stud dog is not the person that the dog is registered to - the sire is still registered to his breeder.

After a phone call, Mary discovers that the current owners of the dog aren't the original owners. The original owner got him from a [real] breeder. The contract the original owner had with the breeder had 2 particular conditions: 1) the dog could not be bred until hips are x-rayed at 2 years of age, at which point the owner pays $200 to the breeder (and I assume re-registers the dog under the owner's name) and 2) that if the owner ever decided they didn't want the dog, that it would go back to the breeder. This person broke contract on both counts - the dog was never x-rayed (or neutered so he couldn't be bred), breeder was never paid, and the dog was given to some random, ignorant people who let their dog breed with Mary's. Now Mary has an illegitimate litter of puppies that were supposed to be AKC dogs. Oops.

Mary of course was furious and left work early to go track down the owner and demand that her puppy be returned since their [verbal] agreement was that they were breeding 2 AKC dogs to produce a litter of AKC puppies. The breeder of the sire will be tracking down the original owner and taking action for breaking contract and said she would try to work with Mary to get her dogs registered.

And on a side note, the current owners of the sire wanted a female so they could breed her. I have a sneaky suspicion they were hoping to breed her to her father... I'm hoping I'm wrong.

Several lessons to be learned here...
1) stick to the contracts you make with the breeders [FAIL on sire's original owner's part]
2) if you buy an AKC registered dog, READ the paperwork that goes with it - as in, check the name on the registration [FAIL on sire's current owners part]
3) if you choose to breed your dog (which I would recommend you leave to professional breeders), check the paperwork on the other dog BEFORE breeding [FAIL on Mary's part]
4) and when you breed, get a contract IN WRITING so if crap like this happens, you can take them to court and have something better than he-said/she-said [FAIL on Mary's part again]

I know close to nothing about breeding dogs but all this seemed like common sense to me!

And I feel sorry for those poor puppies... I'm sure they are really good dogs, at least to be pets. 3 of them (including the female) turned out to be long-haired and I would love to take one, but my 1-year-old is a handful already (and I would get he/she neutered!). I wonder what is going to happen to them if they can't get registered - they won't mean jack to Mary in that case.

[selzer]

I think you need to trust the stud's owner or make sure all your p's and q's are in order before ever breeding the dog.

I prefer to have the papers way before the eight week mark, though. So I would know sooner. But still. Anyone can show you their dog's registration papers. But what if the person is suspended by the AKC?

They may not tell you. And you would be just as stuck.

And at some point you really cannot ask a friend if they are suspended -- hey, there will not be any problem with these. You haven't been suspended by the AKC, have you?

Sounds like a real problem for your co-worker. A nasty lesson to learn at this point in the process.

[lcht2]

the only thing papers are good for are paper cuts...

[dawnandjr]

You can contact AKC and check membership status. Only took an email for that.

[Heagler870]

I don't breed dogs but that just seems like crap!! I can't stand back yard breeders!