Where to research pedigrees? The most obvious answer to this question for the Tibetan Spaniel owner is the Tibetan Spaniel Health & Pedigree Database and this answer will be explored later in more detail. However, most breeds of dog do not have such a wide open research mode available to them. Other means are available with considerably more depth of inquiry, and considerably more effort expended. Good sources include The AKC Stud Book Register, the AKC Pedigree Service, private Pedigree Services, Foreign Country Stud Book registers, Breed Club Year Books both foreign and native, and private collections of pedigree records.

The American Kennel Club Stud Book Register. Published monthly, the AKC records the names and immediate lineage of each and every AKC registered animal used for breeding within the United States and abroad. Each approved application for litter registration sent to the AKC and containing the name of a previously unpublished sire or dam generates an entry into the AKC Stud Book. With subsequent use of this same dog or bitch, there is no further listing of the animal. However, this stud book entry location is recorded on the individual registration forms of all resulting registered get. This appears as a hyphenated number in parentheses following the name of the sire and dam listed in that registration. This number represents the month and year date of the issue of the AKC Stud Book Register where that parent is listed together with the names and registration numbers of his or her own sire and dam. That sire and dam are listed along with the same paranthesed date of their parent’s Stud Book entry. Thus a long list of pedigree entries can be gathered by simply adding up the entries to form a pedigree of nearly any length dating back to the original acceptance of foundation dogs accepted by the AKC as root stock sires and dams of that breed. For the Tibetan Spaniel, these are the Tibetan Spaniel Club of America’s Stud Book of foundation dogs accepted into the AKC Stud Book Register in January of 1984 and published in the December 1983 AKC Stud Book. Once becoming a permanently Registered AKC Breed, Stud books are closed except for foreign registry animals added upon importation of the individual from another acceptable import country or the breeding of a previously AKC registered animal to a foreign registry animal. Some breeds, like the Australian Shepherd registry, go through a period of time with open registry books capable of accepting new registry applicants. This is most often done when the country of origin or the breed is one with foundation stock still being gathered from various other native or foreign registries but purebred status is not in question. The American Kennel Club maintains an information exchange relationship with multiple countries of origin of the breeds it registers. The trick here is that the foreign registry must maintain records that meet the AKCs exacting criteria for accuracy and breed integrity regulations within it’s own record keeping practices. As a result some county’s registries are not eligible for a pedigree exchange with the AKC. Another problem arises when similar breeds are registered under differing breed names in the foreign registry. In the early days of the 20th century the English Kennel Club considered Lhasa Apso and Shih Tzu the same breed, and several Shih Tzu were bred into Lhasa lines in that country. Many American breeders considered these bloodlines tainted and compromised by the few breedings made between the breeds during that time period. Researching a pedigree is not terribly difficult until one runs into foreign registered stock imported to the USA. Foreign registry animal’s pedigrees are only maintained through the AKC on a three to four generation basis, so any heritage beyond that lineage is sometimes hard to locate and sometimes not available at all. Dogs like the Tibetan Spaniel Indian import, Tashi Dordje, have more “Unknown from Tibet” beyond their parent’s names than any other entry. Research of this kind is time consuming and requires access to multiple issues of the Stud Book Registers of multiple countries. Thus, researching a pedigree by ones self can be a daunting task.

Using the Pedgree as a Breeding Tool. The pedigree represents that portion of the mated pair not seen in the phenotype of the individuals to be bred. Knowledge of the both the phenotype and genotype of the breeding pair is represented by the pedigree. It is influenced by the breed type, conformation and temperament of all the individuals that make up the pedigree, and sometimes dependent upon the repeated influence of an individual (or individuals) appearing within that pedigree as well as where he, she or they occur within it. Each mate contributes 50% of their DNA to the breeding and the 100% is reassembled in the get, but each littermate is an individual with differing genetic makeup depending upon which portions of the parent’s available progenitor genes are combined in that specific progeny.

Percentage Pedigrees. Percentage pedigrees usually encompass four to six generations of heritage and 32 to 48 individual progenitors. When looking at the whole pedigree, each time an individual appears that individual is given percentage points of influence within the pedigree. How many percentage points can vary depending on ones point of view. Some percentage methods just divide 100% by 32 or 48. Other methods reduce the influence by 50% for each individual because each parent only contributes ½ his or her available DNA to the breeding mix. Which method to use can be decided by the individual doing the calculations. This author tends to use the simpler 32 or 48 divisible method because it is the whole dog supplying his or her look to the mix. Coefficient pedigrees discussed next do the job of reducing percentages within a pedigree quite well so this author considers that sufficient mathematics to explore on her own. Occasionally the amount of influence of one background individual can be considerably higher than any one of the immediate parents or grandparents, and this is sometimes responsible for that surprise puppy. Sometimes the breeder says, “Where did he come from?” And, the answer is clearly, “From the Pedigree.” Generally speaking, the closer a progenitor is to the first 3 generations of immediate pedigree, the more influence he or she can exert on the get of the litter, but this does not always follow. If a single grandsire appears as the sire of both parents, usually the breeder had better like him because that individual may well have provided close to 50% of the inheritable features of the mated pair and, as such, is becomes as powerful in the breeding as the actual sire of the litter. Couple this incidence with even a single repetition of one of his parents from another source within the pedigree, and influence is again, slanted or statistically skewed. A form of this type of line-breeding is called backcrossing. This author once bred a Boxer litter seeking an improvement in shoulder layback. However, neither parent actually displayed good layback phenotypically. But the ‘doubled-up upon’ grandsire had exemplarily layback. In the resulting litter, four out of the eight pups all had the good layback feature sought in the breeding. In fact, breeders often make this kind of decision. Using the pedigree to provide information necessary to take this kind of calculated risk is one of the factors that makes breeders unique, and puts the excitement into breed development.