MurphysMinder
Well-Known Member
I had a visit from the KCAB assessor yesterday! Somewhat belated as I was approved in 2011 and had a litter of pups in March last year, but better late than never.
Anyway, it was quite interesting and I was suprised how thorough she was. She spent 1.5 hours with me, with 2 dogs, not sure how long a large kennel would take. She asked loads of questions, wanted to see all paperwork I gave out with pups , which involved a request to Cayla for another copy of the Puppy guide as I couldn't find where I had saved the original.
Some of it seemed a bit daft, I had to produce registration certificates for both girls and hip and elbow score sheets for Evie, which I would have thought the KC could check on their own site. Checked out my whelping room, which is now a junk room but luckily I had pictures of the pups in there when they were tiny. She also asked what exercise the dogs had, how long walked for etc, if I took them in the car, where they slept (the bed and large crate in the kitchen was probably a clue there
). She checked tattoo and chip paperwork and then asked to meet the girls. She may have regretted that as she was of course mugged by Freya. Freya then had to be scanned so she could check her chip, which amazingly was pretty much where it was inserted.
She took details of my vets, asked how far away they were and if they did their own 24 hour cover. One question which amused me was my "emergency evacuation" procedure, erm, walk out with the dogs. She said it can be a problem with toy breeders who have large numbers of dogs who sleep in cages, and was something people often don't think about.
She asked my thoughts of the scheme, so I did fire a few questions back at her. She did pre-empt my question about designer crosses, by stating that the KC felt that as there were so many about they should try and encourage decent breeding of them. IApparently to be an assured breeder and have labradoodles etc the KC are now insisting both parents are KC reg, and have had all health tests necessary, and the pups must be registered in either the Activity or Companion dog register so that checks can be made that bitches aren't overused. Not sure if this is happening now or is planned for the future but its a start I suppose.
One good thing is that from January this year everyone who applies to be on the AB scheme will have to be assessed before they are approved, which is a very positive step. To do this they now have 3 full time advisors as well as volunteers ( I had one of the full time ones), and of course this means that the fees for AB will soon be going up.
All in all I was quite impressed. if the KC do actually do what she says they are going to it should hopefully tighten up the scheme . The next thing the KC have to do is educate puppy buyers where to go to buy pups, I did agree with her when she said that if the RSPCA and Jemima Harrison would stop trying to convince the general public that all KC registered dogs were walking disasters and instead helped to educate them it might see a lot less BYBs churning out unhealthy pups.
Anyway, it was quite interesting and I was suprised how thorough she was. She spent 1.5 hours with me, with 2 dogs, not sure how long a large kennel would take. She asked loads of questions, wanted to see all paperwork I gave out with pups , which involved a request to Cayla for another copy of the Puppy guide as I couldn't find where I had saved the original.
Some of it seemed a bit daft, I had to produce registration certificates for both girls and hip and elbow score sheets for Evie, which I would have thought the KC could check on their own site. Checked out my whelping room, which is now a junk room but luckily I had pictures of the pups in there when they were tiny. She also asked what exercise the dogs had, how long walked for etc, if I took them in the car, where they slept (the bed and large crate in the kitchen was probably a clue there). She checked tattoo and chip paperwork and then asked to meet the girls. She may have regretted that as she was of course mugged by Freya. Freya then had to be scanned so she could check her chip, which amazingly was pretty much where it was inserted. She took details of my vets, asked how far away they were and if they did their own 24 hour cover. One question which amused me was my "emergency evacuation" procedure, erm, walk out with the dogs. She said it can be a problem with toy breeders who have large numbers of dogs who sleep in cages, and was something people often don't think about.
She asked my thoughts of the scheme, so I did fire a few questions back at her. She did pre-empt my question about designer crosses, by stating that the KC felt that as there were so many about they should try and encourage decent breeding of them. IApparently to be an assured breeder and have labradoodles etc the KC are now insisting both parents are KC reg, and have had all health tests necessary, and the pups must be registered in either the Activity or Companion dog register so that checks can be made that bitches aren't overused. Not sure if this is happening now or is planned for the future but its a start I suppose.
One good thing is that from January this year everyone who applies to be on the AB scheme will have to be assessed before they are approved, which is a very positive step. To do this they now have 3 full time advisors as well as volunteers ( I had one of the full time ones), and of course this means that the fees for AB will soon be going up.
All in all I was quite impressed. if the KC do actually do what she says they are going to it should hopefully tighten up the scheme . The next thing the KC have to do is educate puppy buyers where to go to buy pups, I did agree with her when she said that if the RSPCA and Jemima Harrison would stop trying to convince the general public that all KC registered dogs were walking disasters and instead helped to educate them it might see a lot less BYBs churning out unhealthy pups.
When she phoned to make the appointment I did say that it probably wasn't worth it as I wasn't planning any more litters, but then decided that stopping her coming would look as if I had something to hide, and I was also curious as to what was involved.