Registration papers may consist of a simple certificate or a listing of ancestors in the animal's background, sometimes with a chart showing the lineage.
[2] Although these entities generally focus on dogs, particularly in relationship to the puppy mill industry, some are marketed as cat registries.
At least one group claims to register wild species (held by private individuals rather than by legitimate zoological parks, which use the AZA).
While many color breeds are legitimate, some "registries" are primarily a marketing tool for poor quality animals that are not accepted for registration by more mainstream organizations.
Many such questionable registries are incorporated as for-profit commercial businesses, in contrast to the formal not-for-profit status of most reputable breed clubs.
In the dog world, such registries may not sponsor competitions and thus cannot award championship points to identify the best individuals registered within a particular breed or species.
In the less-organized world of horse shows, where many different sanctioning organizations exist, some groups sponsor their own competitions, though wins at such events seldom carry much prestige in mainstream circles.
[3] The American Kennel Club is an example of a kennel club with primarily closed books for dogs; it allows new breeds to develop under its Foundation Stock Service (FSS), but such dogs are not eligible for competition in AKC conformation shows, although they do compete at those shows in the FSS category.
A closed stud book allows the breed to stay very pure to its type, but limits its ability to be improved.
It also limits the gene pool, which may make certain undesirable characteristics become accentuated in the breed, such as a poor conformational fault or a disease.
Usually an open stud book has strict studbook selection criteria that require an animal to meet a certain standard of conformation, performance or both.
Among dogs, an example of an open stud book would be the registries maintained by the American Kennel Club as its Foundation Stock Service.
In some cases, an open stud book may eventually become closed once the breed type is deemed to be fully set.
In some agricultural breeds, an otherwise closed registry includes a grading up route for the incorporation of cross-bred animals.
Often such incorporation is limited to females, with the progeny only being accepted as full pedigree animals after several generations of breeding to full-blood males.
The Registry on Merit or ROM may be tied to percentage of bloodline, conformation, or classification or may be based solely on performance.
For example, at qualifying shows in Australia, winning horses of stock-type breeding receive points for conformation, which are attested to by the judges and recorded in an owner's special book.
Registration papers may consist of a simple certificate or a listing of ancestors in the animal's background, sometimes with a chart showing the lineage.
Usually, there is space for the listing of successive owners, who must sign and date the document if the animal is gifted, leased or sold.
A related preservation method is backbreeding, used by some equine and canine registries, in which crossbred individuals are mated back to purebreds to eliminate undesirable traits acquired through the crossbreeding.