AKC Registration vs AKC Canine Partners

AKC is American Kennel Club, found at www.akc.org. They are responsible for creating many of the purebred dogs that we see today. When breeders claim a dog is AKC, and have the certificate to back it up, then this is a confidence builder to a buyer that the puppies are purebred, but are they really?

There’s a couple of things we want to examine here:

1) HUNG PAPERS. This is falsified information so that dogs look like they are AKC registered. But either the document itself is fake, the dog has been renamed to fit another dogs’ papers, or the registration number does not match or is missing. When this happens, this is called ‘hung papers’.

2) AKC CANINE PARTNERS. There is a program that AKC offers for dogs of all mixes. The purpose behind this program is that there are dogs of many different breeds that are excellent at a number of sports. Dock diving, agility, nose work, and obedience certificates, etc. Historically only purebred dogs were able to participate in these programs. But working lines and mixed breed dogs were able to do all of these competitions as well as or better than their purebred counterparts.

So AKC created a secondary program called AKC Canine Partners. You can learn about this program in full here. A dog could have 15 different breeds in them but still be able to participate in the various sport/obedience competitions that are offered. It’s a wonderful service. The dogs must to be spayed/neutered and cannot be a wolf hybrid mix.

WARNING: Just because a dog has “AKC CANINE PARTNERS” documentation does NOT mean that the dog is purebred or recognized by the AKC as being a purebred dog. Pomskies can be registered with the Canine Partners program but are not accepted as a breed by AKC as a purebred dog. This has caused some confusion among our pet owners and some of the new and inexperienced breeders as well.

Pomskies are going to take several years or even decades to achieve the AKC purebred recognized status. Scammers will often state that their puppies are AKC. It’s a clear warning sign that it’s a scammer if they have the AKC title on their page.

Therefore, BREEDING dogs cannot be registered with this Canine Partner program - and if they are stated as being registered, then this means that they lied during the registration process to AKC.

Why are Pomsky breeders striving towards AKC recognition then?

Pomsky breeders feel that this is a wonderful breed and should be fully recognized. We have teams of people who have dedicated hundreds of hours on this particular goal. There are very specific requirements by the AKC in order to achieve this. The claim cannot be submitted to AKC without there being 10 generations of a tri-blend (at least 3 breeds) with legitimate/traceable AKC lineages working towards a very specific breed standard. We are still at least 10-20 years away from becoming recognized. And since we are in those infancy stages, we are also ensuring that we’re not locking in diseases and other unhealthy traits that can be common with other purebred dogs.

TAKE AWAY SUMMARY:

• Pomskies are not AKC recognized yet. If you’d like to get your Pomsky into AKC sport and obedience competitions, then you can register de-sexed dogs into the Canine Partners program, but it does not give your dog the coveted “AKC Recognition”.

• If a breeder claims “AKC” then run, it’s a scam or dishonest breeder.