| Why does HSDAA need to have its own Registry?
HSDAA has established and will maintain a Registry of Havana Silk Dogs to further its goal of preserving Cuba's native dog in its original form.
In order to achieve the goals of the organization and to protect its gene pool, members of the HSDAA do not interbreed their dogs with the American "Havanese", and maintaining a separate registry allows us to track progress being made in the breed in areas of breed type, soundness, and health.
The establishment and maintenence of a well-managed and accurate stud book is also necessary for the recognition of the Havana Silk Dog as a separate and distinct breed, although at this point in time, the HSDAA has not requested recognition of the Havana Silk Dog breed by any all-breed canine registry, including the American Kennel Club.
The reason for this is simple - NONE of the all-breed registries in the United States, including AKC, FDSB, and UKC, currently require the certification of "breeding fitness" that HSDAA requires before granting full registration with breeding rights upon maturity. In fact, at this point in time, all of them will register the offspring of any dog, no matter how unsound, unhealthy, or otherwise lacking in merit it may be, as long as that dog, and the dog it was mated to, are both registered with their particular organization as members of the same breed.
So what is required for a dog to be registered as a Havana Silk Dog?
It depends upon the dog. There are essentially three registration categories in the HSDAA registry:
Certified Registration. These are essentially the HSDAA's "breeding stock" and whose collective breed type, soundness, and health are critical to the preservation of the breed. They are dogs over two years of age which have two parents with Certified HSDAA registration, and which have themselves met the eligibility requirements for Certification listed below:
1. An OFA/CHIC Certificate reflecting passage of all four required health tests
2. An DNA profile
3. An HSDAA Conformation Certificate
4. Soaped photos displaying both straight legs and acceptable proportions
Only the offspring of HSDAA-Certified parents are eligible for registration with HSDAA.
Provisional Certified registration. These are dogs which are eligible for Certified registration as Havana Silk dogs by virtue of their parentage (both parents have Certified HSDA registration) but are under the age of two.
Once these dogs reach two years of age, Provisional Certified Registration may be converted by the owner to Certified Registration by submitting an application and the necessary documentation to the HSDAA Registrar along with a nominal fee ($3) for processing.
Companion Dog Registration. These are dogs which were either sold strictly as companions, or dogs with Provisional Certified registration which were unable to meet the eligibility requirements for conversion to Certified registration. (Dogs who fail to meet the requirements for Certified registration at age two, and dogs whose owners do not choose to certify their dogs before the age of three are automatically converted to Companion Dog status without charge to the owner.)
Companion Dog Registration cannot be converted to Certified registration, and the offspring of dogs with Companion Dog registration cannot be registered with HSDAA.
So what we end up with here is a registry of dogs in which, prior to being granted full (Certified) registration with breeding rights, all intact animals have been screened and certified:
1. to display both sound structure and acceptable breed type
2. to be free of hip dysplasia, congenital deafness, heritable eye disease,
overt chondrodysplasia, and patellar luxation at the time of registration
3. to be, by DNA profile, the actual progeny of the parents listed in
the stud book
To the best of our knowledge, this is the only such canine registry in the world.
Is that cool or what?
|
