Ear Tattoo - Page 1

After reading up about ear tattoos on the database, tonight I was determined to have a go at reading Gracie's ear tattoo. Several people have tried, and all have failed.

However, today my groomer gave her ear a thorough cleaning, which did help make it more visible. So, tonight, I took her out of her kennel, put her up on the grooming table, and turned on all the lights. I was armed with a disposable razor, a magnifier, my reading glasses and a piece of paper on which I'd written the sequence used by the SV and many U.S. schutzhund breeders (letter, letter, number, letter, letter, number.)

Alas, Gracie's tattoo does not conform to this system, and due to an old ear injury the first digit of the tattoo is not readable. The bottom part forms a circle, and it looks like it extends up slightly to the right, which means it could have been the number '6'. The rest of the tattoo reads KNCJA. The last letter is right inside the ear, where it starts to get all bumpy, so I am a little unsure of it.

What a good girl she was! She jumped up on the table with almost no coaxing, and was very, very good about the whole thing!

I really doubt I'm going to be able to identify her breeder with this information, but if anyone can help, please chime in! She came from a shelter in West Virginia, and is a German showline, probably around 5 years old.

That first digit looks like it would have to be a lower case letter, or a number, as the circle is half the height of the other letters in the tattoo, which are all capitals. (I somehow doubt very much that lower case letters are ever used in tattoos!)

vitamin A ointment can somethimes help to bring out tattoo's better, normally all tattooshops have this in stock for their customers if it works it takes about 1week of 2x a day treatment before tattoo gets clearer

Kyto, in this case, vitamin A is NOT going to help, as the tattoo dots aren't even THERE any more. There's a piece of flesh missing. It looks like she might have had an ear hematoma evacuated, as there's a straight scar about an inch long where the upper part of the tattoo should be.

That's another useful trick to add to our growing pool of info
on reading less well defined tats, Kyto, thank you.

We may be past that point here tho' - it's looking as tho'
Gracie's number may belong to one of the private registries
kept by some kennel owners,  it does not sound like an SV/
German number, it isn't an NDTR/UK number, its not very like
other Czech etc numbers we have talked about.  Complicated
by the dog being a rescue with not much known about her
background, right, Sunsilver ?  And the ear damage of course.
Unless someone reads this and comes forward to answer the puzzle,
we may never know to which list this tattoo belongs .  Pity, as it
rather defeats one of the main purposes behind having them done in
the first place.
Sunsilver, I assume you have checked to see if she is also
microchipped ?  (Just a thought !)  A pity if you can never identify her.  
However, glad she is doing so well and is calm & well-behaved, you've
done a great thing.

Hundmutter, she's reasonably calm and well-behaved with ME, but let her spot another dog or critter, and she'll still try to yank me off my feet!

I haven't had as much time to work with her as I'd like, due to being so sick, and having to prepare for the kennel inspection. Also, we're into the annual freeze/thaw cycle, so there's been days when trying to work her was not worth risking a nasty fall on glare ice!

But today is sunny, and is eventually going to get above freezing. If I can get a friend over here to help, I may have another go at introducing her to my other two dogs. The first time around didn't go so well. She went into prey mode, and bit Star! 
 
Wish I had Cesar Millan here to help!  

She definitely has a LOT of drive. I had her at the vet's yesterday to get her looked over (due for second dose of panacur, plus she's got a mild ear infection) and she's got this incredible focus when she hears something on the other side of the door. If I can convince her that the other dogs on the field are not to be eaten, I' think she'll do really well in schutzhund!

Of course, the shelter where she was impounded checked for a microchip.  And yeah, I was pretty disappointed when I found the tat didn't conform to the SV system. That would have made things a LOT easier!

I have e-mailed the GSD rescue in WV, as well as several breeders there. This was all done late last night, so no responses back just yet.

Well, still no response to the e-mails I sent out to various breeders in W. Virginia and Pa.

I had Gracie in the house for the first time, and she sniffed everything in sight, especially the areas where the cat has been. She's quite the hunter, and I'm sure she will excel in tracking.  Poor cat, though!

She's starting to respond to her name reliably now (with the help of treats) and played a little fetch with me for the first time. When we tried this outdoors, I never got the ball back! Her fetching became so enthusiastic, I was worried about her scratching the floor, and bashing into furniture!

She's got a lot of spark to her, and is very loving with her new human.

Did you email Dog 1, Randy Brent? He's in WV now.

Sunsilver, you might want to contact the North American distributor of WinSIS-X GSD  information system, Yvonne Hecht.  She's pretty good at running tattoos through the system and coming up with info, and she might be able to come up with something from what you've got plus a wildcard character for the first one that's unreadable.  Can't hurt to ask her--she's a really nice lady. :)

Thank you, Hexe, will give that a try!

Well, AKC got back to me. Neither they nor CKC have any clue as to who tattooed this dog.