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Pedigrees

Video walkthrough: Watch on Loom (link coming soon)
The Pedigree Viewer is your workspace for exploring and building lineage — going back multiple generations for any dog in or connected to your program. You can build out pedigrees for your own dogs, add ancestors from other programs, download a pedigree PDF, and share a public pedigree link with buyers.

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What You Can Do Here

  • View an interactive pedigree for any dog, from 3 up to 6 generations deep
  • Add outside dogs (dogs not in your program) to fill out ancestral records
  • See this dog’s pedigree COI (inbreeding coefficient), marked Beta
  • Download a one-page pedigree certificate PDF
  • Share a public pedigree link with buyers, vets, or co-owners
  • Handle pedigree invites from other breeders
  • Open the same pedigree from an individual dog’s profile

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How It Works

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Viewing a Pedigree

  1. Go to Pedigree Viewer in the left menu (under Tools & Analytics).
  2. In the Pedigree Profiles panel, choose In Program (your dogs) or External (outside dogs you’ve added).
  3. Type a name in the search box and click the dog. Their pedigree opens on the right.
  4. Use the Depth dropdown at the top of the pedigree to show 3, 4, 5, or 6 generations.
  5. Click any dog in the tree to see their details, photo, and genetics.
You can also open a dog’s pedigree from their own profile: go to Dogs, open the dog, and click the Pedigree tab (in the Breeding & Lineage group). If it says the dog needs a pedigree profile first, click Create Profile.

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Filling In Parents and Ancestors

At the top of every pedigree are the dog’s two Parents cards.
  1. Click Assign on the sire or dam card.
  2. Type the dog’s name or registration number in the search box. The window lists Your dogs and Outside dogs already in your pedigrees together. Click Select on the right one.
  3. Not listed? Click Add “name” as a new outside sire (or dam) at the bottom. Fill in the Name and anything else you know, like the registration number, Breed, and Color. More fields (call name, birth date, microchip, notes, photo) are under More details.
  4. Click Add sire (or Add dam). The parent now shows in the tree. Outside dogs stay in the pedigree and don’t clutter your main Dogs list.
If the dog you’re adding looks like one you already entered (same name, with or without titles like CH or GCH, or the same registration number), BreederBuddy shows it before you can save. Click Use this one to link the existing record, or It’s a different dog if it really isn’t. Using one record per dog keeps your COI accurate. Want the other breeder to manage that dog with you? Open Breeder while adding the dog and enter their kennel name and email. They get an email invite. When they accept, the dog shows up in their account and both of you see a Co-owned badge. If they’re new to BreederBuddy, sign up from that email, and start a paid plan, you each get $5/month off (you can earn it for up to 6 breeders). To remove a parent, click Clear on that card. Grandparents and further back: empty spots in the tree show an Add Ancestor box (for example “Add sire for Bella”). Click one to add or link that dog right there. A spot stays locked (“Add closer parent first”) until the dog in front of it is filled in.

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Reading the COI Card

Under the Parents cards and above the tree, the This Dog’s Pedigree COI card (marked Beta) shows this dog’s inbreeding coefficient from the ancestors you’ve recorded:
  • Based on N generations of recorded ancestors tells you how deep the figure goes. On a deep pedigree it also shows the figure at 4, 6, and 8 generations, so you can see it climb as more ancestors count.
  • Ancestors recorded is how many ancestor slots are filled in (for example “18 of 30 slots”).
  • Unique ancestors is the share of those slots filled by different dogs (for example “15 different dogs fill 18 recorded slots”). Below 100% means some dogs appear more than once.
  • Top Contributors lists the shared ancestors adding the most to the COI.
The COI shows only in the app. It isn’t printed on the pedigree PDF or shown on a pedigree share link.

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Downloading a Pedigree PDF

Click Export PDF at the top of the pedigree. Pick a Layout and Style, then download a one-page pedigree certificate you can print or email.

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Sharing a Pedigree

You can create a public link that lets anyone browse a dog’s interactive pedigree and click each dog for their details and gallery photos — no login needed.
  1. Open the dog’s pedigree (in Pedigree Viewer, or the Pedigree tab on the dog’s profile). From a dog’s profile you can also click the Share icon and choose Share pedigree.
  2. Click Share URL at the top of the pedigree.
  3. Click Create Share URL. The link appears in the window.
  4. Click Copy and paste it into a text, email, or post.
To check how it looks, click Open Public View. To stop sharing, click Disable Link. Regenerate gives you a fresh link and stops the old one from working.

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Key Terms

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Tips & Common Questions

Use the Depth dropdown to show 3, 4, 5, or 6 generations.
Yes — you can send them a public share link that shows the pedigree without them needing an account.
COI needs both a sire and a dam, so it shows Not yet until both are assigned. Once it has them, it only counts ancestors you’ve recorded: unknown ancestors are treated as unrelated, so the figure is a floor and can only go up as you fill in more generations with Assign on the parents (and their parents). The card always uses the deepest pedigree available (up to 8 generations) no matter which depth you pick for the tree, and tells you how many generations it rests on and how many ancestor slots are still empty. The short line next to the number (“about the same as a first-cousin mating”) is the same figure translated into a textbook relationship. If you have an Embark or similar DNA report, its DNA-test COI is shown beside the pedigree figure; it measures actual shared DNA, so it is usually higher.
Invites go both ways. When you add their dog as a new outside sire or dam, open Breeder and enter their email to invite them as co-owner. When another breeder links one of your dogs, the invite shows up in the Pedigree Invites panel of the Pedigree Viewer, where you can review it and match it to one of your existing dogs.
Yes. Once a puppy’s sire and dam are linked (puppies added from a litter get them automatically), the puppy’s pedigree shows every ancestor you’ve recorded for both parents. Build each parent’s pedigree once and all their puppies get it.
The same dog was added as two separate outside records, so BreederBuddy counts them as different dogs. The warning lists which ancestors are doubled. To fix it, go to Dogs, click External pedigree catalog, and pick one of the copies. A yellow box lists the records that look like the same dog. Click Merge, choose which record to keep, and click Merge again. Every pedigree that used the other copy switches to the one you kept. If BreederBuddy didn’t spot the match (for example a misspelled name), click Merge with… and search for the other copy yourself.
In the Pedigree Viewer, choose External in the Pedigree Profiles panel to search them. To edit an outside dog’s name, breed, or other details, go to Dogs, click External pedigree catalog near the page title, pick the dog, make your changes, and click Save External Profile. Their Breed dropdown uses your saved breed list (Manage Breeds in Settings → Preferences).
Go to Dogs, click External pedigree catalog, pick the dog, and click Delete. If it’s a parent in any of your pedigrees, BreederBuddy tells you which dogs first, and deleting it takes it off those pedigrees. If you entered the same dog twice, use Merge with… instead, so no pedigree loses its parent. To remove a dog you own, delete it from its Dog page instead.
Go to Dogs, click External pedigree catalog, and pick either copy. If BreederBuddy spots the other one it shows it in a yellow box with a Merge button; otherwise click Merge with… and search for it. Choose which record to keep and click Merge. Every pedigree that used the other copy now uses the one you kept, the kept record fills in any details it was missing from the other, and the extra copy is removed.
When you add a dog from another breeder, you can open Breeder and enter their email to invite them to link and co-manage the dog. Invites you receive show in the Pedigree Invites panel of the Pedigree Viewer under Received, where you can match the dog to one of yours. Invites you’ve sent are under Sent.
Add them like any other ancestor. If they were one of your dogs, set their Type to Deceased on their profile; deceased dogs can still be picked as a sire or dam.
Not yet. Registry imports are marked Coming soon. For now, upload a photo or PDF of the pedigree chart to Import with Buddy on the dog’s profile and Buddy builds the family tree for you to review. Buddy reads up to 4 generations from a chart (parents through great-great-grandparents); add anyone further back with the tree’s Add Ancestor boxes. See Importing Your Data.
There’s no family-tree chart for a pair that hasn’t been bred yet. Use the Genetics Forecast instead: pick the sire and dam to see the Projected Offspring COI, each parent’s own COI, and the Common Ancestors Contributing to This Pair (up to 8 generations). It also works with outside dogs from your pedigrees.

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Still Have Questions?

We’re here to help. If something isn’t working the way you expect, or you’d like to have a discussion around a certain topic, please reach out to us anytime through the chat in the bottom right corner of your screen. Thank you.