pedigree or not?

when we got hunni the owner told us she was staffi cross jack russell but our vet says she is pure staffi so i asked her old owner if she had seen both her parents and she said no. she brought her as a pure staff but her vet said she had jack russell in her due to her colouring. i have now seen pictures of other staffi's that are red and white so think she is pure breed. i want to insure her but i dont know what to put as her breed. im so confused!

post some photos

Going on what little I know she looks pure Staffy to me. I'm sure others will be along to say for sure.

i will post some in a bit,she is wearing her sexy pants lol

I would have said a cross as you haven't any papers. Without them you'll never know one way or other, thats the way of dogs lol Xx

As Janey says , without papers you really have to assume cross as you can't prove otherwise, which means Tilly's technically a cross as well, but saying that she looks like a staff in your avatar , and Tilly definitely looks like a Staff , in fact I'm going to call Tilly a replica from now

The vet said because of the colour it was a jack russel cross?

Seriously, do vets even know anything about animals anymore?

Equi wrote:The vet said because of the colour it was a jack russel cross?

Seriously, do vets even know anything about animals anymore?

Totally agree - the colour is typical of a red pied staff! I don't know where he got Jack Russel from!

Hmm i can kinda imagine how vet may think such a thing,... when floyd was about 11 weeks old his muzzle seemed to grow first and looked too long for his head then his head started to catch up and widen

If your meaning pedigree as in 'full breed' or purebred, then its a slightly different meaning to pedigree. Perhaps cross should have been used in title rather than pedigree

I'd have to disagree with some peeps, just coz its no papers,... dont assume its a cross, best to wait till its mature to see its build and stature. But in saying that,.....
Staffs come in all shapes, sizes and colours. If you follow the Kennel Clubs breed standards then you will assume your staff must fit the exact profile and shape. The truth is that there are staffs out there with full paperwork and history which are clearly way bigger and chunkier than a KC standard. This can lead to the 'theres pitbull in my staffy" debate. Regardless of there being no dna test to prove either breed.

You have to remember by their very design all staffys are crosses. I have read articles and watched vids on youtube, some staffs and pits when DNA tested come back as breeds such as collie !

Unless there is a major blatently obvious visible cross trait , as a staffy lover id give it the benefit of the doubt. I have found some pedigree owners of various breeds to look down on other dogs and owners if they dont have paperwork, snobbery really.

If its roughly the size and shape and has the smile of a staffy, then to me,.. it is. Any other logic would mean id be questioning the pedigree of every staffy i see in the street or park, unless they have their paperwork hanging from their collar

Floyds sister who stays round the corner is red and white pied.



For insurance purposes : since you dont have paperwork and some staffs as a breed are prone to inherited problems it may be cheaper and safer to simply say unknown mixed breed.

Well, he probably isn't pedigreed, but he looks pretty close to pure bred. I have had quite a few people think that Saxon was part JRT because of his coat color (and I've had a couple of people ask if he was part beagle for the same reason ). People rarely know what their talking about when it comes to dog breeds. Very few people actually do research any more. Whatever hunni is, she is gorgeous and looks very much like a Staff.

Floyd1138, The point of the video you posted is to show that DNA tests, at present, are not accurate at IDing pure bred dogs of known parentage, not that her AmStaff is actually mixed with Border Collie. I wouldn't say that purebred Staffords/AmStaffs/Pit Bulls are crosses any more than I would say any other breed is. Every breed started out by mixing other breeds/types together to create the look/characteristics you were looking for in a dog.

Thanks catstina, im aware of he point of video i posted, it was to show staffys by design have different breeds in them.
I think you misunderstand. I didnt mention her amstaff was crossed with a collie, was promoting the fact about "Every breed started out by mixing other breeds/types together to create the look/characteristics you were looking for in a dog. "

And yeah there is a difference between pedigree terminology and purebred. You can have a purebred staffy with no pedigree, the later just means history and provable blood line

She made the video to show the inaccuracy of Canine DNA tests. The first thing it says on the screen is "Are Canine DNA tests reliable? Dawn Capp, M.S., J.D. thinks not."

Yes exactly ! There is no dna test to say if you have staffy or not. The use of her word 'reliable' may be taken as questioning the results. Perhaps she was expecting it to come back as 100% amstaff. Like i pointed out, staffs in design are crosses and dna tests dont work.

At the moment there is no DNA test that identifies dog breeds with 100% accuracy. DNA tests rarely come back correctly for purebreds of other breeds, as well, not just Staffordshire Bull Terriers or American Staffordshire Terriers. That is my point.

I have just posted the stuff your telling me.

Who knows what medical science and gene coding will bring.
I dont have a time machine and cant see into the future lol

Aha! Misread your last post! I thought you were saying that there aren't any DNA test specifically for Staffords because of how they were bred. I just reread it and I now realize that you said pretty much the same thing I did.

Floyd1138 wrote: I'd have to disagree with some peeps, just coz its no papers,... dont assume its a cross, best to wait till its mature to see its build and stature.

You have to remember by their very design all staffys are crosses. I have read articles and watched vids on youtube, some staffs and pits when DNA tested come back as breeds such as collie !

For insurance purposes : since you dont have paperwork and some staffs as a breed are prone to inherited problems it may be cheaper and safer to simply say unknown mixed breed.

If you don't have a 'pedigree' then you can only assume that the dog 'may' be crossed with something else down the line as you can't prove otherwise.

Although I agree with your second comment partly, I think you have the wrong idea of what a pedigree dog is. A pedigree dog is one that has been produced from parents of the same breed whose parentage can also be proved to have come from the same breed back to when they were first registered by the kennel club.

I disagree about the insurance. If your dog looks like a staff, and is either a full staff or a cross with a staff you must say so, otherwise the insurance could be invalidated.

to be honest it's only wording, if you and your vet think so then, her medical record will show staff, so put staff as i assume if you need to claim you will be using the same vet and if not then you can quote them and say they told me she was

steve76 wrote:to be honest it's only wording, if you and your vet think so then, her medical record will show staff, so put staff as i assume if you need to claim you will be using the same vet and if not then you can quote them and say they told me she was

As Steve says you are probably best to go along with the vet . Tilly is most certainly a staffy though she has no papers , I call her a staffy , the vet says she is a staffy and she is insured as a staffy. I think the only time there is anything to gain from your dog not being a staffy is if you were travelling to France and then , only if she didn't really resemble a Staffy you would b better to have her recorded on the defra passport as a xbreed - but only if she didn't really resemble a staffy.