So ive been pondering AKC registration and if its worth. Anyone care to share their views on what the pros of it may be?

A little back story- Right now i don't know that it matters for us because she's just a companion and will be spayed. Obviously we don't plan to show her either. Her parents are registered (although they are racing/working dogs) and the breeder gave me all the paperwork way back when we got her in October but i haven't done a thing with it since then. I believe we would do "limited" registration in her case? I'm pretty ignorant as far as the AKC goes and i am just curious to hear why or why not registration is a good thing. (we are leaning towards not registering her)

Registering on a limited basis would be beneficial if you ever decide to compete in obedience, agility, other canine sports, etc. Otherwise, there's really no need. With a limited registration, she cannot be shown in conformation classes, must be spayed, and therefore cannot be bred. I guess for some it's nice to just have the "papers", but in reality if you aren't going to show in obedience trials, or any other AKC sanctioned activities/ spots/ competitions, you don't need to register her.

I registered Saphire even though we are in the same situation you are in. I looked into it and I didn't think it was that expensive so I just went ahead and did it. That being said, now her papers are just taking up room in my filing cabinet. I have never needed them for anything. They do however register their microchip numbers if they are microchipped and that might provide some help if they were ever lost.

oh i didn't know about the micro-chipping thing. Well i think it would be a blast to do agility and obedience but I'm not sure its realistic. There's one place locally (that i know of) which does training for these kind of trials but I have no idea what it entails . If its like conformation, i probably couldn't afford to get into it anyways- although it looks like fun.

Short term my goals are just to get basic obedience down. Long term maybe pass the Canine Good citizen Test and see if being a Therapy dog is an option. You are right its not expensive to do registration, if I'm honest i am kind of a penny pincher though : ).

Thanks for the feedback. Like i said, I don't know a lot about this particular subject.

I went through the same thing when we got our first Siberian. I had thought about doing obedience with him, since he was not show quality....never did and like Dena said above, his paperwork ended up just taking up room in my filing cabinet. Same with our second. Who would have guessed 8 years later, with them in their older years, I'd have them running on my sled team and since they are registered as are the other dogs on my team we qualify for the purebred classes- You never know what the future may hold I guess Plus the benefits of the microchip registration is nice.

I went ahead and registered both of mine. It is not a huge deal unless you plan on competing like the others said. Otherwise it is just another certificate. I used a different microchip company, called Pet Key. It came free with Nikko, who is ACA registered but I had to pay for Yukon's, but you can use any micochip registry, and they don't have to be AKC registered.

i think the micro-chip reason is the best one for me to consider it. Is it a different kind of chip thats linked with the akc registry? I hope that question makes sense.

See i always thought that microchipping was just a simple : insert chip, here's the number for it and website to register your info. So i guess what I'm asking is if having it also linked to the akc registry is just an alternate way to use the same micro-chip or if its something completely separate.

Microchipping is very confusing, and it took me a long time to even remotely understand it.

First you select a microchip brand and have it inserted. Then you get the microchip number and you can go online and register it to basically any registry you want to, AVID, Petlink, PetKey, and AKC has a registry as well. It is up to you which one you want. Some have lifetime registration, some charge an annual fee, and some charge if you change your information.

Microchipping is separate and has nothing to do with registering with the AKC, and you do not need to register your pet with the AKC to be able to register a microchip.

I hope that make sense, it took me awhile to figure it all out ;-)

I think what you mean Kibahope is how do you use the AKC pet recovery option - very simple, just put your microchip information for you rpup on the sheet. IN the papers there is a place to write it.

Papers are good for a lot of things - some day you may get curious about the sire or dam, or your dog may develop HD, CD or JC and it is important to be able to tell the breeder. It's only 30 and honestly, you can do a lot with it. Dog events are fun. Even if you don't use it you still have the option to do agility, weight pull, obedience, rally, CGC, WPD, Therapy programs through AKC. There are many things you can use it for