AKC and Tattoos - Page 1

When i was trying to trace the tattoo for my female rescue, several people suggested I contact AKC. I e-mailed them the tattoo, and about 5 days later got a response saying they couldn't help me. I assumed they had no record of the tattoo. How wrong I was!

Someone else suggested that AKC kept a separate record of foreign born dogs, and I should ask about that. They responded with an e-mail saying they didn't keep track of dogs not registered with AKC. Well, DUH!! Of course not!

I sent them another e-mail asking if they kept a separate list of dogs born in other countries which then recieved AKC registration. They responded that they did record tattoo numbers, but TATTOOS ARE NOT PART OF THEIR SEARCHABLE DATABASE!!

My opinion of AKC just sank another notch...

And mine...

WTF is the point ?  In tattooing we have a very useful tool
but the canine 'establishment' often seem to be bull-headed
about using it.

Somewhat good news here. The AKC will put microchip information on the pedigrees of some breeds. GSDs are one of the breeds. Not sure what the process is yet other than my situation where an American born dog was exported to Germany and we had to request it.

AIN'T AKC great...? I mean what good are they...Except to take your money...

Tattoos are not standardized and every breeder who uses them has their own method of using tattoos.  Kennel, year, puppy birth # in the year ( HK1304) or year, litter, puppy # (13C04), etc.  so searching tattoos is probably not useful for most people .. in your case it would narrow the field of possible dogs at the very least but each searchable field costs database time and resources and if not used slows the search time with little or no benefit.  If you know the date or approximate date the dog was imported perhaps AKC could give you a full printout of all the records from the country of origin (Czech, etc) the dog was imported from and you could manually search for the tattoo number if the AKC tells you which field the number would be in.  From what you say the number was probably entered but is not searchable by the database engine but you could do it manually from a printout.

USCA has a standardized tattoo scheme that has repeatedly been used over the years to identify the breeders of dogs found by rescues and others.  Several dogs have been claimed by their breeders and rehomed as a result.  The  scheme involves numbers and letters that identify the USCA region, the USCA tattoer, the breeder, year of birth, litter letter and the dog's  number in the litter:

Seven digits
 
 1^st digit= region
2^nd digit=tattoer’s code letter
 
3^rd digit= last digit in the year of birth
 
4^th and 5^th digits= Breeder’s code letter
6^th digit= litter letter
7^th= puppy’s number in litter (by order of tattooing)

In addition, some breeders have their own tattoo schemes that have also been helpful in identifying dogs of their breeding, when they end up in shelters, etc. 
 
 
Regional Codes:
 
A= North East
B=New England
C=SE
D=North Central
E= Mid-Central
F= Mid-East
G= South Central
H=Southwest
I=Northwest
K=Pacific Northwest
 
 

And then there's those that don't use that system, like whoever tattooed my rescue: GKNCJA     

Actually, when I looked back at the original e-mail I got from the people in AKC who help reunite owners with their lost dogs, they said they had no record of that tattoo. At the time, I wasn't sure what the first letter of the tattoo was, which is why I sent a second request, asking if it might be listed in their database of foreign imports. That was when I was told the tattoo numbers were not searchable.


Either that person was wrong, or it's just the foreign import registry that's not searchable.  And THAT doesn't make sense, because I assume most of the imports eventually are granted AKC registration!
 

perhaps AKC could give you a full printout of all the records from the country of origin (Czech, etc) the dog was imported from and you could manually search for the tattoo number
 

Um, yeah, dream on, bubba!  This dog is a RESCUE. All I know for sure is she was found in West Virginia, and appears to be a rather nice German showline. How many countries breed German showlines??

Anyway, I still may get a chance to talk to the former 'owner', who is Chinese, and speaks almost no English, as I have managed to find someone who is fluent in both Mandarin and Cantonese, as well as several other Chinese dialects. We'll see what info THAT conversation turns up!

 

The letters could be German word abbreviations and the last letter a number 1-26 (ie a=1 and z=26) which would be better than a number for the puppy number in the litter??  If you can get GKNC  J A (junger 1)

bubba, welpen is the German word for puppy. Junger just means 'young' and doesn't necessarily apply to dogs.

And if this were a German tattoo, it would use the SV format of letters and numbers.