Hi. My pedigree puppy is from a litter of 4 (2 boys and 2 girls). He is KC registered. When I log in to KC register it says his litter was 8 pups (5 girls and 3 boys). How is this possible? I have photos of the litter at every stage when they were with their mum, and there was only ever the same 4 puppies. Could 4 of the puppies be deceased? Could it be an admin error?

It’s an error on their part. It’s all over the place at the moment - a proper shambles. You need to contact them to get it sorted.

Well as no-one comes to check on how many pups there are who knows.

This is something some bad breeders did, to mask overbreeding of bitches.

They would breed one poor bitch under two identities every season, but on paper litters were born to two bitches with the required yearly interval and 4 litter maximum.

Another use for extra papers was to breed from unregistered, even non pedigree or stolen dogs, using these ghost papers.

Then there are bad breeders whose rearing conditions might not look good in photos, and they have used other people's puppy photos.

A friend in my breed recently saw her photos being used in iffy puppy ads.

On the other hand it could be innocent and you were only shown the available pups, as the breeder didn't want you to attach to ones they were keeping (seems unlikely to me, but then my breed are all same colour)???

I agree seems odd to me.

Is the breeder reputable and in good standing within the breed community???

> It’s an error on their part.

As they list the individual tegistered names, it is unlikely.

Missing dogs yes, extra ones???

RHsadler:  If you only saw 4 puppies throughout the course of communication then I suspect the other 4 are deceased.  Some breeders register their Litter as soon as they are born,  If there are fatalities then the registration cannot be revoked. That doesn't mean to say there is a sinister reason for fatality - just that the Breeder was over zealous to get paperowrk returned in time as the KC are notorious for long delays.

Oh hang on I read this as the OP was the breeder and had registered a litter and it had come back wrong! Was trying to clean my toddlers teeth at the same time

Scrap my initial reply!!

> Missing dogs yes, extra ones

There are cases of extra ones being added at the moment with newly registered litters. Duplicated names on the paperwork too. It’s all over the place.

Not for the OPs issue though - read that completely wrong! Probably because I’m having huge issues with registering my last litter with the KC so it’s on my mind and just assumed it was a similar situation in my speed reading!

Now that I’ve read this properly (sorry!) are you still in touch with the breeder. I would query it with them first and see what their response is.

massajackrussell:  Extra Ones Added; How does that work?  They must have different dates of birth on the official paperwork?  Look different to a viwer size/colour etc? I have just registered a litter on line and you cannot duplicate names ie summer song, winter song, autumn song etc...

To loose half a litter?

I sometimes register pups as soon as first few days, if all going well.

I think you can cancel registrations in event of puppy loss.

Though maybe they won't refund?

Brainless:  Cancel Registration: Timing of registering your Litter is a personal choice,  Personally I don't until they are 14 days old and thriving in every way from up on their feet, eyes open and first worming.  If registration has taken place at newly born the registration exists and  surely you would have to apply to KC (if that's possible) to have those Puppies removed from records.  I don't know but a refund would be the last thing on my mind if I had ever lost half my Litter,  Sorry just a bit out of my depth here with facts.

The staff are quite helpful, I have lost a pup after registering, and they cancelled it, also changed my mind on a name and they changed it for me.

Both a few years ago now.

Brainless:  Thank you for this info & that's something to bear in mind if a fatality or name changing scenario arises. I don't have much contact with KC as most things are done on line but it is something to consider for the future.  Did you find out why that little pup died.  Only asking as I lost one last year and thought it was fading puppy syndrome by googling but didn't quite understand what that meant.

Hoggie: the breeder has entered everything correctly but for some reason they’re just messing it up the other end! All to do with the shocking new system I think. No idea what’s going on.

masajackrussell:  If s then hopefully the OP will be able to receive clarification.  I know what you mean by messing up!  Some of my recent health test results (all positive I may add) are missing too,  having to scan and email potential new owners so the 'messing up' is a real pain and it seems only KC know what's going on...

IF there is any sort of scam involved, then the most likely one would be that two bitches had pups and both litters were registered to one of them. The other could be endorsed, too old or have already had a litter within the past year. This is why the KC queries unusually large litters (for the breed in question) and ask for photos of mum with the pups.

Goldmali:  If there is any sort of scam involved:  Understand what you are referring to.  What kind of category of Breeder is guilty of this? Can't imagine parentage DNA testing could be falsified.  Just as well the KC are now pushing for this to be performed on all Litters.

They would need to put in place efficient and fast testing for the numbers registered in UK.

Bearing in mind that to get reliable samples pups need to be big enough to get blood.

For cheek swabs pups need to.be fully weaned and seperated from each other for several hours to avoid cross contamination.

Think.of the practicalities, and short time window, to test, get results and do registrations in the space of maybe 10 days?

It could only really work if therenwas some sort of 2 stage registration, with pups having reg certs with parentage verification pending.

Then once DNA results came back, full registrations issued to the registered owners.

These would be required to be able to breed from them.

Unfortunately the unscrupulous would simply send pups with the unverified parentage papers, and never bother with the full registration, knowing most.buyers wouldn't care.

Lets face it plenty happily buy unregistered pups.

It would also add quite a bit onto cost of a puppy, possibly £100 - £150, for the Vet work, the labwork and extra paperwork.

> Did you find out why that little pup died.

Something hadn't developed properly internally.

Pup was one of largest at birth, but failed to gain any weight for 12 days. Fed well, was topped up with a quantity that should have gained, let alone what it got from Mum.

So with my Vet decided to Put to sleep.

Obviously the rest of litter were more than twice the size.

With GSDs in Germany, after a massive scandal,  compulsory DNA profiling was brought in. All puppies have to be profiled before registration & results linked to their parents for comparison by computer program.
This really should be brought in for all registries.

> With GSDs in Germany, after a massive scandal,  compulsory DNA profiling was brought in.

All Silken Windhounds are DNA profiled before they can be bred from too, to prove parentage and hereditary dna test results but the Davis Veterinary school at UCLA also used the dna samples to map the breeds genome. It's also useful to have dna samples of dogs no longer with us, when a new genetic test is developed, like the DM one a few years ago, the breed club can go back and test the samples from the earliest founders.

Any other breed's pedigree is relying on the honesty of every single breeder involved, it's a leap of faith. There's no reason now why every breed couldn't be dna verified.

Just the practicalities to put in place.

Judging by the current computer system fiasco, our KC would really need to get things properly on place.

> <br />A friend in my breed recently saw her photos being used in iffy puppy ads.

This happens more than we would think.  I was browsing puppies online once and was shocked to see one of my bitches shown for sale on a well known pets site.

To everyone on here:  Scammers PLEASE BE WARNED: Not unusually in the current circumstances I have been plagued with messages from people enquiring about puppies - now & in the future.  One individual has asked for a response 7 times by email. He has been requesting 2 bitch Puppies of 'any type' - ignoring him has created the repetition so when eventually I responded, I explained that I have started to request Vet Reports before considering a new owner) He responded by saying he wanted two puppies, one for him & one for his son. Puppies from working lines were required to join his 'shoot' & that he was a Vet. Low & behold his next response was to cancel any communication as he has found the Puppies he requires. He goes by the name of JOHN from RICHMOND...  oh and he writes in broken English.

I posted earlier this year regarding puppy prices and since then decided to import my puppy, as I was only interested in certain DNA statuses (clear) but also a wider range as is recognised by the breed club (who are extremely out of touch and working for their committee’s own interests in my opinion). I was lucky to find a brilliant UK based breeder and now mentor to support me with my efforts. My girl also has a 3% COI against the breed average that is over 12%. If I am able to campaign her successfully and her hips/elbows are satisfactory, I am hoping to have my first litter hence why these factors were so important to me and are not widespread in practice in the UK.

When discussing with her breeder, along with a network of likeminded European breeders I have since been introduced to, I was absolutely gobsmacked to hear that they knew of various live examples of fake pedigrees from UK export dogs, as well as faked DNA statuses on some issues. As another poster mentions, my breeder does DNA profiling on her puppies (not sure if it’s mandatory) and along with mandatory health testing prior to registration, I do not think it would be a bad thing for the KC to adopt this practice. Is there not going to be a big fallout from buyers at some point on the future? These are the things the KC should be doing but unfortunately they don’t want to know and write back to me “consult your breed club”...

> My girl also has a 3% COI against the breed average that is over 12%.

If that's from the KC and your dog is imported or has imports behind it this will make the coi artificially lower as the pedigree I'm the kc database will be incomplete. For example my boy his wife was an import so his KC COI is based on 17 generations in total with only the first 4 generations fully complete.

No, her import hasn’t been done yet (still waiting). That will say 0%, as you say artificially, her COI is 3% against a european database going back some way. Her grand sire was imported from Australia although he himself has a few lines back to European dogs.

Edited because I typed it quickly and it sounded a bit rude unintentionally! Also because I’m aware there are bottlenecks of up to 27.5%, when I was researching these occurred many many generations back, although unavoidable as I understand so many were lost in the war.

> Hi. My pedigree puppy is from a litter of 4 (2 boys and 2 girls). He is KC registered. When I log in to KC register it says his litter was 8 pups (5 girls and 3 boys)

Is this a reputable breeder ?