Rare Breeds in the US and the facts behind Registration

So what constitutes a Rare breed?

The FCI recognizes 339 breeds. The American Kennel club officially recognizes a meager 157 breeds. This leaves a whooping 182 breeds unrecognized and unregisterable if they are imported to the US. These 182 unrecognized breeds all fall under the classification of "Rare breed" in the US since the AKC does not recognize or register any of them. Currently there are some 55 Internationally recognized (FCI) breeds waiting to become recognized by the AKC (American Kennel Club). All of these 182 Internationally Recognized breeds are actively bred and exhibited throughout the world except they are not allowed access to events hosted by the AKC and are not registerable in the US. Just because a breed is "Rare" or unknown in the US, does not mean the breed is rare in other parts of the world.

What is the FCI and why is it important to have a dog with a pedigree recognized by them.

Below is Quoted text located on the FCI website linked here:

• The Fédération Cynologique Internationale was created on May 22nd, 1911 with the aim to promote and protect cynology and purebred dogs by any means it considers necessary.

• The Fédération Cynologique Internationale is the World Canine Organisation. It includes 84 members and contract partners (one member per country) that each issue their own pedigrees and train their own judges.

• The FCI makes sure that the pedigrees and judges are mutually recognized by all the FCI members.

• The FCI recognizes 339 breeds, Each of them is the 'property' of a specific country. The 'owner' countries of the breeds write the standard of these breeds (description of the ideal type of the breed), in co-operation with the Standards and Scientific Commissions of the FCI, and the translation and updating are carried out by the FCI.

• Every member country conducts international shows as well as working trials. results are sent to the FCI office where they are input into computers. When a dog has been awarded a certain number of awards, it can receive the title of International Beauty or Working Champion. These titles are confirmed by the FCI.

• In addition, via the national canine organization and the FCI, every breeder can ask for international protection of his/her kennel name.

Why is this an important detail? Lets discuss the AKC's position in the world.

Each country in the world has 1 (one) recognized National kennel club that offers titles and championship certificates that are acknowledged (recognized) by other National breed clubs throughout the world. This means that an AKC champion can be sold to another country and that country would register the dog and also recognize it's Champion Status on the pedigree. AKC allows dogs registered in recognized foreign countries to be registered in their system. The AKC is not a full member of the FCI and they have yet to place foreign earned Champion or working titles on their pedigrees. When I questioned AKC representatives about this flaw in their system, they inform me that it's a problem with the computer software which prevents them from entering foreign titles. Maybe in the future it will become a reality.

The only officially recognized National kennel club in the United States is the American Kennel club. Unfortunately, any private group can establish a "kennel club" and start issuing champion certificates or titles in the US but they are only worth about as much as the piece of paper they are printed on. Here is a list with links to Private, for profit "registries" operating in the US: IABCA - International All Breed Canine Association, ARBA - American Rare Breed Association, UKC - United Kennel Club, United All Breed Registry & NAKC - North American Kennel club. I think you are starting to see how confusing this can be. If you want to show your rare breed dog and these are the only places that offer classes, go ahead and have fun as long as you understand any titles earned are not recognized outside that organization.

Let me put this another way; If I wanted to set up a kennel club and call it: "United States Kennel Club of America" and start issuing champion titles for all internationally recognized breeds....I could. I could even invite FCI licensed judges, AKC judges etc to evaluate the dogs. BUT, none of the degrees issued would mean a darn thing. I could not take dogs solely registered with my "United States Kennel club of America's" or ones that "earned" a champion certificate and expect another officially recognized kennel club to register this animal, nor would any country recognize or accept the champion status of the dog. This is often the case with rare breed dogs in the US that have earned "champion" status. Most honest breeders will list what organization issued the "champion" certificate so as not to mislead people who may not understand the complexities of kennel clubs. However, far to many people who have gotten involved in Rare breeds, do so in order to exploit the breed for their own personal gain so they are not as forth coming with details such as "champion" status.

Unfortunately, Canada has a similar problem with Private kennel clubs issuing champion certificates and you'll see Rare breeds listed as "Canadian champions". CFC - Canine Federation of Canada. Go to the Canadian kennel club website and look up the breed in question to determine if the breed is officially recognized in Canada if the breed is not recognized in the US. 

Why should a rare breed owner care about AKC-FSS?

Okay, so now you understand that Rare breeds are NOT officially REGISTERED in the United states by the AKC (American kennel club) but the AKC does offer a recording service for rare breeds in order to help them gain recognition. The recording service offered by the AKC and hosted by them is NOT a registry even though the papers and procedures look very similar. The recording service is a NECESSARY step for a breed to move towards full recognition. AKC-FSS requires a minimum 300 recorded dogs with 3(three) generation pedigrees before the breed will be approved for advancement to the first step towards AKC full recognition....AKC Misc. breed classes. If a US Rare Breed parent club is smart, they will collect the minimum number of 300 pedigrees BEFORE they turn them over to AKC-FSS for official recording. The reason for this, is because the AKC-FSS allows Breed Parent Clubs to transmit copies of all of their pedigrees FOR FREE!! This is a one time good deal and it saves individual owners the hassle and expense of individually recording their dogs. Plus, with the minimum number being met, the breed can move almost immediately to the first step towards Full AKC recognition (AKC MISC. CLASSES). Look on the AKC-FSS link which lists all the requirements necessary for a breed to finally achieve full recognition status. Once a breed has entered AKC Misc. Classes, it will remain there a further 1(one) to 3(three) years before all the conditions are met. Once that happens and the AKC board votes to fully recognize the breed, then all dogs recorded with AKC-FSS will automatically receive their AKC papers in the mail.

This is why it's imperative for each and every rare breed individual dog to be recorded with AKC-FSS. Companion owners are often not aware how important their rare breed pet is to the advancement and development of their breed as a whole. Dedicated breeders who care about the advancement and protection of their rare breed will individually record puppies with the AKC-FSS before they are placed with their new owners. This way, breeders can assure that every dog they produce will be helping their breed towards recognition. No breed should be floundering around for 20 years struggling to gather enough pedigrees to move a breed towards recognition but it happens all the time in the US due to apathy on the part of owners and the desire to earn money off the breed rather than safeguard it's future. 

How long do most Rare breeds take to become fully AKC recognized?

A number of breeds have taken decades in their quest to become AKC recognized. The Vallhund took about 20 years to become fully recognized in 2007, the Dogue de Bordeaux has been in the US since the 1960's and it just progressed to AKC Misc. classes in 2007. The Xoloitzcuintli has been in the US since 1986 and they are still working towards recognition. I have only highlighted a couple of Rare breeds here, but their story is quite common and one of the main reasons why people hesitate to bring a "rare breed" to the US. Because of these long periods of breeding in isolation, breeders have to rely on importing registered stock to try to maintain the integrity of their breeds until they finally achieve AKC recognition.

So until a breed achieves recognition status, You are extremely limited in what you can do in the US with your dog. You can pay and participate in these private "kennel club" activities and earn "championships" that are essentially meaningless or you can enter AKC companion events once your breed club has met various requirements to earn recognized titles.

Unfortunately, no matter how good your dogs are, you are not able to enter them in ANY event anywhere else in the world with just your AKC-FSS recording papers. I inquired to the FCI as to why this was so. How could a dog born in the US and recorded with AKC-FSS not be eligible to enter shows in other countries? They explained because the AKC does not recognize the breed and hence the dogs are NOT REGISTERED. The situation created by AKC is of serious concern to active international exhibitors and of great concern for the offspring of dogs only recorded and not registered.

Fortunately there are FCI recognized National breed clubs in Europe etc. that have agreements with breed specific rare breed clubs in the US to register offspring born in the US out of exported dogs from their country. Typically this would be the country of your particular Breeds origin. This type of arrangement works well for a breeder that only acquires their dogs from that 1(one) country.

What if you have acquired dogs from several countries such as: Hungary, Poland, Germany, Peru or France etc.?

The arrangement your breed club has worked out with the foreign National breed club of origin more than likely won't cover offspring resulting from parents registered in different countries. Now you're left out in the cold......or are you?  Puerto Rico (FCPR), which is a commonwealth territory of the US, also offers registration for dogs born in the US out of all FCI recognized breeds and dogs which are registered in any FCI recognized country such as France, Belgium, United Kingdom etc. This way, dogs born in the US can be exported to other countries, registered, bred from, exhibited, earn Titles, Championships and all Champion titles earned in those countries are placed on the pedigrees as well.

Who cares whether the Rare breed dog I'm buying has actual FCI recognized papers or not.

If you happen to be a military family, you will probably end up overseas at some point. If you try to register your AKC-FSS, ARBA, UKC, IABCA, NAKC, CFC "registered" dog, you will get a nasty surprise when it's rejected and you are forbidden from entering events, breeding the dog etc.

What if you are a breeder in the US and you sell a puppy to Hungary or Peru for example. Unless the puppy has been registered with an FCI recognized registry such as Puerto Rico (FCPR), you will not be allowed to register, show or breed from it.

This information may come as a shock to some breeders in the US, even people who have been breeding Rare breeds for a number of years but unless you are faced with selling a dog born in the US to another country, or you plan to exhibit your dogs overseas, you may never have encountered this problem before. The problem with registration is more than likely a major contributing factor as to why numerous breeds in the US become so very different than their counterparts throughout the world. Essentially, Rare breed Breeders in the US are breeding in isolation since they are not able to directly compare dogs they have produced with top dogs in Europe for example. I think this is a shame but AKC refuses to correct this serious but basic problem. As long as they are collecting money from recording dogs via their AKC-FSS program, they are not terribly motivated to work with the FCI to fill this gap in registration recognition that befalls rare breeds in the US.

Last updated: February 23, 2008 11:10 AM