Frequently Asked Questions

NEW: I signed up a long time ago and I haven't gotten my login information. *OR* I submitted pedigree information a long time ago and it hasn't been updated yet.

I know. I'm sorry. Updates have been "catch as catch can" since I was elected to the ASCA Board 3 years ago. They slowed to a crawl about 6 months ago (February 2009), as life got more complicated. As soon as I'm off the Board in September 2009, I hope to be able to get back to processing logins and pedigrees. Please be patient, as there is quite a backlog (500+ logins and 5000+ pedigree updates)... (August 2009).

I've seen this data somewhere else.

Yes.  You may have.   I know of two sites that have largely overlapping information with this site.  Both have obtained copies of the information on this site and published them without my knowledge.  I "stumbled upon" them.  It happens.  That's part of the reason I don't "share the DB" as broadly as I once did.

Neither of the other sites are being actively maintained at this time. (August 2008).

Hey!  Some of my dogs are in here and I didn't put them in!  Nobody checked with me!

Yes.  That happens.  Usually, it happens in one of two ways:

1. When someone uses the submission page to add their dog and puts in an "extended" pedigree.  They're adding their dog's information--not yours.  That yours happened to be in their dogs' ancestry should please you.

2. When I get information from the many places I get information (see this incomplete list).  This includes people other than the owner and breeder of the dog who submit pedigrees.

If the data is incorrect or incomplete please send me a correction or addition and I'll fix it.

You don't have any ancestry behind my dog.  I know they have a well documented ancestry.  Why don't you have it?

Because my sources didn't include your dog.  Not having a listed ancestry in this DB does not mean that a dog has no documented ancestry.  It merely means that I don't have it.  If you have the extended pedigree for your dog, please submit it on the submission page.

On controlling what's in the DB "because I'm the breeder":

If you want me to remove information, contact me and we can talk about it.  Under some circumstances, I can be talked into to removing specific single animals from the database.  I won't remove dogs that have been titled or bred, as those animals are no longer "hidden from view" and are contributing to the programs in which they participate and/or the broader Australian Shepherd gene pool.  In my opinion, if you want to keep the pedigrees of your dogs secret, don't show them, breed them, title them or advertise them and don't sell, give, or trade them to anyone who will.

I'm reluctant to remove otherwise good information about dogs because you've "changed registries and changed the dog's name and registration number".  I will list the dog under the name you prefer, but I'd like to continue to track the other name as an alias.

I won't contact you because someone submits a pedigree that has one of "your" dogs in it.  There are over 80,000 entries in this DB.  To check with every "owner" or "kennel" every time one of "their" dogs get submitted would exceed my time commitment for this project.  That would/will result in it's removal from the web.  It's that simple.

Mini's are in the DB!  That's great, thanks!  ...or...  That's horrible, what were you thinking?!

Yes.  They are.  They've been in the DB for the last 4 years or so. Their inclusion does not mean that they ARE or AREN'T "Australian Shepherds".  They're here because their history, a good chunk of their genetics, and large portions of their pedigrees are all intertwined with the Australian Shepherd.  So much so that taking the "mini portion" of the DB--which for all intents and purposes is an impossible task--out for someone else to host as a "Mini-Aussie" pedigree DB would substantially reproduce what already exists here. 

Fundamentally, I believe it's more important to have a valuable informational tool available to people than it is to take a hard "doggie politics" stand via this website.  I'd rather have more information available than less--so Mini's are in (as they've been for several years). 

If you look closely and know what you're looking for, you might be able to find a couple of Aussie x BC's in the DB as well.

My dog is listed as his own sire with an F=100% and dam named "Dog Also Known As" (or her own dam with sire "Bitch Also Known As").
    (or) What the heck is "# AKA" as a Registration Number:

In the early history of Registered Aussies, every time a dog changed hands it changed names--only the registration numbers remained the same.  Nowadays, dogs may have multiple names if they are registered in multiple registries (i.e. MASCA/NSDR or ASCA/AKC).  As a result, pedigree hounds like me can either get duplicate data in the information (and your breeding records get ALL messed up), or we can develop a shorthand to identify when a name applies to a particular animal.  That's what I've done.  I choose one name that functions as the "primary" name for a dog.  The other names are "aliases" or "AKA's" for the "primary" name, and are marked as such.

For example, the following are different names (AKC and ASCA) for the same dog:

Heatherhill Paladin
Heatherhill Nidalap

The name I have chosen as the "primary" for this dog in the DB is "Heatherhill Nidalap".  The other entry is an "alias" for the "primary" and references it by having "Heatherhill Nidalap" as the name of the Sire with "AKA" as the Registration Number.  For females, I put the primary name in the "Dam" Field. (example: Catalpa Gingerbred Cantbewrong/Gingerbreds Ms Can't be Wrong)

If I know the ASCA name of a dog, I choose that name as the "Primary".  If not, it's up for grabs.

What's that "F=" percentage thingy anyway?

Wright's Coefficient of Inbreeding (article by CA Sharp).  It was computed using a maximum of 10 generations in depth--so they are comparable to what you'd get from CA.  Some facts about the DB and the COI calculations:

• No dog in the DB had any ancestors any deeper than 32 generations. 
• Few dogs in the DB have more than 8 "full" generations of pedigree information.
• Modern show line" Aussies that appear to be outcrosses usually have their COI's change dramatically between generations 6 and 8, as "foundation" dogs begin to appear in their pedigrees.
• "Show Line" Aussies generally get one generation "deeper" every 3 years.
• "Working Line" Aussies generally get one generation "deeper" every 4 years.
• The highest COI in the DB is 57.8%.
• The "DB Average" for dogs with a non-zero COI is 13.4%.
• The "DB Average" over the whole DB is 11.8%.

Some "Observations" about COI's in general:

• 12.5% is equivalent to a half-sibling mating, and is a little higher than "ideal". (47.2% of the DB is this or higher).
• 25% is equivalent to a parent/offspring mating, and is a "high" COI (7.7% of the DB).
• 50% is an "astronomically high" COI (0.034% of the DB).

NOTE: "Trial Pedigrees" do not have COI computed for them.  COI computation is a compute-intensive task, and the DB isn't implemented such that computing COI's "on the fly" makes sense.  Sorry.

How can I update titles other information for dogs in the Database?

Use the Data Entry form.   You can include "x" as the Sire and Dam if you don't want to type all the "required" stuff.  You may also, at your discretion, send me e-mail with the updates, but I'd rather you used the Data Entry form..  Did I mention that I strongly prefer for you to use the Data Entry form?

Other Breed Online Pedigree Databases

If you're interested in online pedigree DB's for other breeds, here's a place to look.  There's even a bunch of CAT pedigrees out there.

About titles:

I'm not "tracking" titles.  If you enter titles, then that's fine.  I've got some I like to see and some I don't (and will remove, for instance: I don't consider "PT" "HT" or "HIC" to be titles, they're pre-title "certifications" and as such, they are pretty meaningless IMO.  I also don't include CGC.).   I will leave the "Championship" titles alone (WTCH, HCH, Ch, OTCH, MACH, etc.).  I was tracking ASCA titles for a while, but stopped.  Here are the reasons:

• I don't have an infinite amount of time to track titles, and once I start doing it everybody's going to ask me to, so I'm not going to start.
• Policing" the titles, so that they're "ASCA Only" is too time consuming.

If you want titles in there for your dogs, use the data submission form to add them to the DB.

I keep seeing a message "Access Denied", what's going on?!

The Database now has a "limiter" built into it.  This message is the "limiter" telling you that you have exceeded the daily, hourly, or per-minute limits on DB searches.  The more times you hit the limit, the slower the DB will respond to your queries.  The limits are currently being "tuned", so please be patient.  No, I'm not going to tell you what they are.

To avoid the message, please take the following actions:

• Please limit the total number of requests for pedigrees, searches, and/or breeding reports to 35 per day.  If you do, chances are good that you will never see the message from the "limiter".
• Don't request another pedigree for an hour or so.  If you've used the DB a lot in the past 24 hours, wait a day or even two.
• Lower the rate at which you make requests of requests (don't do 2 per minute).
• Ensure that your browser accepts cookies from www.hrdndog.com, because if it doesn't you will be locked out on your 3rd access.

Please keep in mind that this pedigree DB has more than 1000 users.  Even with the "limiter", it produces 1500 pedigrees or breeding reports on a "normal" day.  A "heavy" day sees the site serve 2500 or more pedigrees.  By choosing to place an "upper limit" on people using the DB, I'm ensuring that the vast majority of the users--who look at less than 10 pedigrees during their visit--continue to have this resource available to them.

I've signed up, and it still asks me to sign up!

The new login mechanism uses cookies.  Your browser must be properly configured to allow the cookies to be shared.  In order to do this, the  "Security" settings must be set to "Medium".  For more information, click here.

What software do you use for the DB?

I use and endorse BreedMate to manage the data, FSpeed Pro to compute the COI's of all the animals in the DB (takes about 5 minutes to re-do them all on my PIII/650), and a modified version of Alfirin Technologies WebGeneal package for presentation on the website.

A couple of other good software packages for tracking dog information are "Breeder's Assistant" and "K9Ped".  These software packages all support "output" of the pedigree data into an "industry standard" format--so that you may change programs or share seamlessly with users of other programs.  In all cases, these companies view the data you've painstakingly collected over the years as your data (and as someone who has collected a fair amount of data over the course of several years, that is important to me...).

Can I link to the database from my website?

Sure!  It's trickier than just "doing a search and copying the link", though.  A number of people have done that, and they've found that their pedigree points at another dog when I update the DB.  Here are some examples of how to do it so that it comes up with the correct dog every time.  The links are to dogs that live at my house (for those of you who wondered who "His Britch" is, your answer is in the first link...)

• http://www.hrdndog.com/cgi/geneal.pl?op=pedigree&pattern=45ranch2big4hisbritches&gens=5
• http://www.hrdndog.com/cgi/geneal.pl?op=pedigree&pattern=workinclasshooker&gens=5
• http://www.hrdndog.com/cgi/geneal.pl?op=pedigree&pattern=brigadoonssutekobitxixka&gens=5
• http://www.hrdndog.com/cgi/geneal.pl?op=pedigree&pattern=gingerbredsfoolinaround&gens=5

NOTE: Due to the "login" mechanism, anyone who looks at the link must login to see the pedigree.  (to see what I mean, exit all your browser windows, come back here and click one of those 4 links).

Will you share your data with me?

Yes, I am occasionally willing to share portions of the data with people for their own personal use.  I'm VERY selective about sharing at this point--due to the number of "one-way" sharing requests.  Many people want me to share with them, but don't bother to "share back".

What do all those letters mean around a dog's name?

Those letters are titles associated with the dog in question.  Here's a "key" that covers much of what you may see in the database (the "ASCA" titles).  I found it interesting, and somewhat dismaying, that there are around 50 possible agility titles (at the time I wrote this), and seemingly more every day--and only 19 possible stockdog (and no "hog" titles have been granted since the 80's, as there is a moratorium on "hog trials").

Where I got the data:

To my knowledge, none of the information contained within the Database is proprietary or confidential.  As such, this information exists in the public domain.  I'm just making it available in a different way.

• Thanks to all of you users: 20000+ "online contributions!" You average nearly 3000 submissions a year.  (See the Entry Form)
• Special thanks go to Leonora and Sarah from the AussieHeritage list.  Over 15% of this DB is due to their work and willingness to share information.
• Thanks to Michelle Lund for donating the software package to do the original bulk COI computation.
• The AKC Online Store (Reg#s, DOB, and Color only)
• The OFA Online Database (Parentage, Reg#s, DOB, Color)
• The CERF Online Database (Reg#s, DOB)
• The Aussie Times (Pedigrees, Titles, DOB, Color, Reg#s)
• The Australian Shepherd Journal (Pedigrees, DOB, Color)
• ASCA Show Catalogs (All relevant information)
• Online AKC Show Superintendent's posted results (Parentage, DOB, Reg#s)
• Public communication, including Australian Shepherd e-mail lists.
• Public Aussie websites with pedigree information. (Pedigrees, DOB, Reg#s, Color)
• Kris Toft's pedigree books. (Parentage, Reg#s, Color)
• Cheri Preciado's "Aussie Stats" book. (Reg numbers, colors)
• ...and a cast of pedigree hounds and dog owners worldwide who have provided the information to the broader community.  You know who you are.

Why shouldn't I just build a script and "harvest" the data out of your DB?  It's not that hard to do.

As a long-time software developer, I can understand this question.

• The short answer is: "Because I asked nicely."  
• A longer answer is: "Because I've already had to create a login mechanism, so if you do it I'll know who you are."
• A final answer is: "Because I'll just block your access if you continue."

I've already blocked access for at least one person who did this.  I don't like to do it, but in order to keep the site up and available for EVERYONE, I feel obligated to constrain the usage to people, not automatons.

What the heck is "UR" as a Registration Number:

It means the dog is not registered.

What does XXX mean:

It means I need help with this one.  Help!

Why I put the database online:

I created this database because I was interested in how we got to where we are with the Australian Shepherd breed.  I maintain it because I continue to find more interesting information about dogs from the past and present and because I may (or may not) be searching for some elusive "bloodlines".  I made it public because it seemed a shame to hoard what I had while others were searching for the same things.  The lack of open, correct, and available information frustrated me then, and it continues to frustrate me today.

On correctness:

I strive to have correct information in the database, but the data is only as good as the sources from which it came (and/or the transcription service provided by my fingers).  Correcting the incorrect information that is here is much easier than it was to pull what's here together in the first place.

I know this data is not all correct.  There are duplicates and misplaced sires and dams in here.  I find errors and omissions in here every day.  As I find them, I fix them.  If you find any, let me know and I'll fix those too.

This page visited times. Copyright © 1998-2006 Patrick MacRoberts. All Rights Reserved. Changes last made on: Saturday, September 06, 2008 01:50 PM .