Does a dog have to be kennel club reg for it to be a pure pedigree?
You can have a pure bred dog that is not registered, but no kennel club or show or breeder will official recognise it as a pure bred. Take border collies for an example. There are lots of border collies who are undoubtly pure bred border collies, but because their ancestors were not registered when collies were taken into the kennel club, they have no papers and so cannot do breed shows, and when registered for agility/obediance etc, are registered as ‘working sheepdog’. They are still border collies!
Hi, I get the feeling you’re in the UK in which case: no the dog doesn’t have to be KC registered to be a pure bred dog. It doesn’t have to come from a back yard breeder or puppy farmer just because it isn’t KC registered either. Registering puppies isn’t cheap and sometimes breeders don’t feel a puppy is going to be of show standard and so won’t register it. Sometimes an owner with a realy good female dog will find a good male to have just one litter, this isn’t wrong or illegal the owner may want to keep one or more pups and sell the rest unregistered. For the record, the oldest Kennel Club is ours in the UK.
