Clubs Offering:
Are you ready to discover what makes your dog unique? An AKC-Certified Pedigree is your purbred dog’s official family tree that allows you to trace your favorite pal’s ancestry.
A pedigree provides you with information you may not have otherwise known. It will show you if your dog has champions in its bloodline. This means that at least one of its parents or grandparents earned an AKC Championship title. You might see a CH (Conformation Champion), FC (Field Champion) or MACH (Master Agility Champion) affixed to the front of one of your dog’s ancestor’s names.
You will also find out if your dog has foreign ancestors. Wouldn’t it be neat to find out that your dog comes from Italy or Australia? In addition, a pedigree will tell you the AKC registered names that complete your dog’s family, as well as their coloring and achievements.
This official document also shows any recorded health certifications, such as OFA, which will enable you to be more informed about your dog’s health history. All the information in a pedigree is compiled from the AKC’s Stud Book records, which date back to 1875. 
Why wait to explore your dog’s ancestry? After all, his or her family story is the path that leads to your canine companion. You can purchase your dog’s AKC-Certified Pedigree in the AKC Store. https://www.akc.org/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php Get Your Free AKC eBook
What is a champion bloodline dog?
As the wording suggests, this phrase refers to a dog that has champions in its bloodline. However, it doesn’t mean that a pup’s mom and dad are both top dogs of the show ring.
Instead, champion bloodlines refers to the fact that at least one of that pup’s parents or grandparents managed to earn an American Kennel Club (AKC) Championship title. So if a breeder says a puppy is from champion bloodlines, it could potentially mean that their grandfather on their mother’s side was once named a champion of the show ring.
For example, one of the dog’s ancestors may have earned the title of Conformation Champion (CH). While they’re sometimes seen as beauty pageants, conformation events measure how closely a dog conforms to the official breed standard.
Or maybe they earned the Master Agility Champion (MACH) title, which, according to the AKC, is awarded to dogs that achieve a certain number of championship points and qualifying scores from select classes.
To find out exactly what sort of champion dogs are in your dog’s bloodline, you’ll need to check their AKC-Certified Pedigree.
Once a breeder has developed a breeding plan, an evaluation of the brood stock that you are going to be using is the next step. First and foremost, the individual stud dog or brood bitch must possess the outstanding traits that the breeder is looking for in the offspring. The mating of animals with similar characteristics tends to produce offspring that resemble themselves. This is known as like-to-like, type-to-type or positive assortive mating. It is obvious that breeders should avoid mating animals with the same faults, as this type of mating will also tend to produce offspring with those faults set within the family of dogs.
Linebreeding: This term is often used to denote breeding among related individuals or dogs from the same family or bloodline. Examples would be mating between first or second cousins, uncle to niece, aunt to nephew, and in some references half brother to half sister is also listed as an example of linebreeding. Linebreeding is the breeding style that is a compromise between inbreeding and outcross breeding. Breeders use line breeding to preserve the traits of a family of dogs while at the same time retaining the variability in the gene pool. Variability is good as it counteracts the potential detrimental effects of doubling up on bad genes that is sometimes seen as a consequence of inbreeding. Line breeding is a slower and less direct way to fix desirable traits in a bloodline, but does offer more options and fewer risks than inbreeding. Diligent selection of quality brood stock from bloodlines known for their soundness and breed type is also very important when a breeder is choosing to do linebreeding.
One of the most effective ways I have seen an outcross breeding used by breeders is to select to breed to an unrelated dog with a sound pedigree that possesses an outstanding quality that is absent or lacking in the breeders bloodline. From the resulting offspring an individual is selected for the trait that the breeder is looking to introduce into his line. That dog is then bred back into the original bloodline (linebred or inbred) fixing the new desirable trait into the original bloodline. One breeder explained the breeding strategy of bringing a quarter outcross into his line to be used as a ‘catalyst’ for the line. A ‘catalyst’ in the sense of bringing together all the goodness and quality of his bloodline with an added kick of hybrid vigor.
Outcross breeding: The definition of outcross breeding is the mating of purebred dogs within the same breed that are relatively unrelated. The style of breeding increases heterozygosity and creates new genetic combinations by bringing together genes from totally unrelated individuals. There are two primary reasons that a knowledgeable breeder will choose to make an outcross breeding. The first is to introduce into their family of dogs a trait that is absent or lacking, and secondly to dilute undesirable traits that are caused by homozygous recessive genes. Outcross breeding is essential when a breeding program begins to show signs of inbreeding depression such as loss of vigor, disease resistance and infertility. Many times breeders will have two basic inbred or linebred families of dogs or bloodlines within their kennel and will do outcross breeding between these two lines. The result will be dogs that are ‘better’ than the two original lines. Breeders speak of this as a ‘nick’. Geneticists speak of this as ‘hybrid vigor’. No matter what you want to call it, this type of breeding will many times produce animals that are better than each of the original lines. Many times these dogs produced from outcross breeding have gone on to become athletic top performance animals. We have seen many famous ‘nicks’ within our breed, none more notable than the Tudor/ Colby breeding of Howard Heinzl and the Boudreaux/ Carver breeding of the Honeybunch line. Both of these bloodlines have produced many outstanding individuals as well as becoming the foundation of many other quality bloodlines today.
One of the most frequently asked questions at the ADBA office this last year has been, “How do I become a breeder and establish my own bloodline? The answer could encompass a whole book, so I will begin by breaking down the question into a few of the fundamental parts and begin putting together the answer that will help guide those new fanciers that have this interest. The motivation to become a breeder can be twofold. Number one: the individual wants to preserve and maintain the quality of the dogs that he has noted in a dog or a number of dogs that he has come in contact with, or number two: the individual wants to improve or incorporate a new characteristic into a family of dogs that he is involved with.
Understanding Dog Breed Bloodlines‼️
If you’re shopping around for a puppy and comparing breeders, chances are you’ll come across the phrase “champion bloodlines”. Breeders commonly highlight these 2 words as a selling point for their puppies, but have you ever stopped to wonder what it actually means when a puppy has champion bloodlines?
You might be surprised to learn that it may not have as much bearing on that cute little pup in front of you as you might expect.