Dog Breeders Glossary

The AKC is a kennel club, fully known as the American Kennel Club. It is one of if not the largest kennel clubs in America.

Gaining AKC papers means your dog is registered with the AKC. These are evidence of that and can display that an individual is purebred as well.

Registering a dog to the AKC allows you to enter them in shows, register future litters and many other benefits.

A method of breeding where a hybrid dog is bred to either their parent or another dog that is very genetically similar. This is to achieve a litter of dogs more similar to the parent.

Breeding a bitch through multiple consecutive heats as opposed to letting her rest between pregnancies.

Crossbreeding is two allow the mating of two different dog breeds to produce hybrid puppies.

Dam is a synonym for bitch, meaning a female dog who can physically become pregnant due to being un-spayed.

The acronym DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid. This is a type of genetic material.

Contracts can be established between the owners of studs and bitches, and between buyers of puppies and breeders. These contracts ensure ethics, financial management under differing circumstances, and the return or ownership of a dog.

This is something that determines the characteristics of a puppy. It is transferred from parent to puppy.

When two closely related dogs are mated, the puppies produced are inbred.

Kennel clubs standardize breed types, allows for formal registration of individuals and litters, and organizes and judges many dog shows.

A synonym of selective breeding, where humans deliberately mate two individuals to produce offspring with desirable physical or behavioral characteristics.

When two distantly related dogs are bred, the puppies have been produced through outcrossing.

The term pet quality refers to a dog that the breeder feels is not appropriate to breed from as it does not show worthy quality.