# Info on how to find littermates?



## Somesouthernbell (10 mo ago)

I have a 6 year old pure bread GSD. She is soo sweet and you can find her in a group of 100 other gsds.

i fostered and then adopted her from Bay Area GSD rescue in September 2020.

the family before us had two small kids and surrendered her. Before that, no idea.

I want to find her litter mates or breeder so bad… can you help???


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## wolfy dog (Aug 1, 2012)

Hope you don't open a can of worms.


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## Somesouthernbell (10 mo ago)

wolfy dog said:


> Hope you don't open a can of worms.


I don’t get it, what do you mean??


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## Bearshandler (Aug 29, 2019)

Does she have a chip?


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## Somesouthernbell (10 mo ago)

Bearshandler said:


> Does she have a chip?


I actually am not sure. I will look into that!


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## wolfy dog (Aug 1, 2012)

Somesouthernbell said:


> I don’t get it, what do you mean??


People have ended up in court because previous owners claimed their dog or you meet new friends. I always play it safe, maybe too negative to most. Get her chipped to prove ownership along with the vet records.


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## Buckelke (Sep 4, 2019)

If you get her DNA from Embark, they email you when a dog with similar DNA turns up in their system. You have the option of contacting the owner who may or may not want to be bothered. 
But I would imagine finding litter mates would be like a needle in haystack. ALL German Shepherds have similar DNA. 
You cannot limit your search to the area where you adopted your dog because people move around, adopt from areas they don't live in and shelters bring dogs from all over to keep a good selection available. 

Shelters use chips to track dogs - Miss Ellie had been a guest in 3 shelters (and adopted out and returned to a different one) in the 18 months before we found her in the county lockup. Any vet can check for a chip.


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## Somesouthernbell (10 mo ago)

She has a vet appointment tomorrow actually so I will definitely be checking on that and updating!


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## Sunsilver (Apr 8, 2014)

Have you any idea who the breeder was? If so, you could try searching for the kennel, though given the circumstances, I'm guessing she was from a back-yard breeder, so no kennel or kennel name to help with your search.


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## wolfy dog (Aug 1, 2012)

I wonder if it is possible for a breeder to add his/her name and contact info on a chip along with the legal owner's. I would love that if I would breed dogs but also as an owner. That way when a dog ends up in the system, I would be notified about my puppy's whereabouts as well. It seems like an extra safety net for the dog.


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## Sunsilver (Apr 8, 2014)

Eska's breeder is also her co-owner, so her name is on the chip, too.
And many responsible breeders DO chip the pups before they go to their new homes. It's left up to the new owners to change the information on the chip, and I'm willing to bet a large percentage of them DON'T BOTHER!


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## Fodder (Oct 21, 2007)

BAGSR chips all their dogs.
If a chip was placed prior to them acquiring her, previous info was likely cleared.

And yes…. Breeders (and rescues and service dog orgs) can opt to have their information remain on a chip. It would have to be spelled out in their contract tho, since the legal owners maintain all rights.

To the OP…. changes of finding littermates are incredibly slim. Especially with the number of GSD in CA. Best bet would be an Embark DNA test which also has a relative finder feature (limited of course to dogs also in their system).


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## Hopps (Dec 5, 2021)

If you really want to go down this road, have them scan for a chip. Have them scan the entire body, not just the immediate neck area. Microchips can migrate (it did for my dog) so you might find more info that way. If I could safely find out what happened in my dog's past I would! I chose not to go down that road because you never know what kind of people you would meet.


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## Magwart (Jul 8, 2012)

One of my rescued dogs looks like he's from ASL lines -- aspects of his head and face look _very _similar to some well-known ASL dogs. But he came out of a shelter where he was left when his owner moved out of the country for work, and no documentation was left at the shelter. Embark has turned up a relative as close as a half-sibling who came from the same area, and that dog's owner helped me track down their breeder. They were super-nice when I messaged them through the Embark platform. Then the breeder figured out that someone who bought one of her puppies probably bred it without telling her and produced my dog--but there's no telling which one. That's about as close as you're likely to get with Embark -- you have to be extremely lucky to find a littermate (meaning, their owner ran a test with the same company that you did).

Embark runs sales pretty often -- I wouldn't pay full price knowing how often they run major discounts.


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## Magwart (Jul 8, 2012)

wolfy dog said:


> I wonder if it is possible for a breeder to add his/her name and contact info on a chip along with the legal owner's. I would love that if I would breed dogs but also as an owner. That way when a dog ends up in the system, I would be notified about my puppy's whereabouts as well. It seems like an extra safety net for the dog.


I can't say what's available to breeders, but Datamars/PetLink sells rescues a "Guardianship" chip that has a permanent link to the rescue that cannot be removed. I _love _this feature: upon adoption, we register it to the adopter, but even after doing so, the "guardianship" feature is permanently linked to the rescue. If the dog ends up in a shelter or someone tries to change ownership, we automatically get notified along with the adopter. In fact, last night, I got a Petlink email that a dog we had adopted out in 2016 had been picked up by AC and taken to a shelter -- Petlink automatically notifies both the owner and the rescue by email as soon as the ACO logs the dog into the database as "found." We were able to get ahold of the adopter through their cell phone number on file with the rescue before the shelter had even reached out to them. The dog got home within an hour or so of being picked up running loose. It's a really good backstop -- if the owner hadn't surfaced, we'd have gone to get the dog to hold onto it until we could figure out what was going on with the owner (out of town, hospitalized, etc.).

Datamars/Petlink has great account support for rescues, but they also have divisions that handle vets, livestock, etc. I'm sure they have a "breeder" division -- it would be worth asking them if they sell the same "Guardianship" feature for breeders. They're the only company that I know of that has this. If you get to a point that you're in need of this @wolfy dog , PM me and I can ask my rep with the company to provide a contact name of someone who works with breeders.

Any company will let you add yourself as an "emergency contact" when you register the chip for the new owner -- but they can replace your name with someone else's quite easily.


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## Sabis mom (Mar 20, 2014)

Many of the breeders I know are asking buyers to keep them on the chip info as second contacts. Its a great safety net for the dogs.
As far as tracing your dogs background, be very careful going down that road. 
Many moons ago I ended up with a beautiful Malamute that came to me in horrible condition. I had her paperwork and contacted the breeder as a courtesy, to let her know I had the dog and she was safe. As it turned out the dog had been sold at least twice before I ended up with her, and the breeder contract expressly forbid that. She could have taken the dog from me. Numerous conversations and a face to face meeting allowed me to keep the dog, but she could have taken her. Sadly we never did find out what became of the littermate that was sold to the same buyer.
She is one of the breeders I know keeps her info on the chips.
There are any number of reasons to be cautious. Stolen, lost, etc. Don't open a box you can't close.


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