# How to read a pedigree: ENCI and SBTPedigree > What an ENCI pedigree certificate really shows, what SBTPedigree adds, and how the test mating is used to study a pairing before it is made. What the ENCI certificate says, what SBTPedigree adds, and how a pairing is studied before it is made Reading a Staffordshire Bull Terrier pedigree means using two different tools. The **ENCI certificate** is the official document: it certifies parents, grandparents and great-grandparents and records the registered titles and the filed examinations, but it shows neither the genetic tests nor a single photograph of the dogs. **SBTPedigree**, the breed's international archive, adds what is missing: photographs of the ancestors generation by generation, the uploaded genetic tests, the foreign titles and above all the progeny, that is what a dog has produced. Its test-mating function calculates the theoretical coefficient of inbreeding of a litter and shows which ancestors it concentrates on: the same dog can have a coefficient of 9 per cent over eight generations and 21 over the full pedigree. A guide by the Del Piccolo Diavolo kennel, which has bred Staffordshire Bull Terriers in Ostellato (Ferrara, Italy) since 2013. «It has a pedigree» is the sentence that ends every discussion, and it means almost nothing. A pedigree says **who a dog descends from**, not what it is worth. And above all: there are two different documents, with two different purposes, and people who do not breed usually know only one of them. ## The ENCI certificate: the official record The pedigree certificate that the ENCI issues for a Staffordshire Bull Terrier is the **official** document. It certifies who that dog's parents, grandparents and great-grandparents are, and it records the **registered titles**: Italian Champion, recognised foreign championships, and any official examinations filed. It is the only document with legal value, and the one without which a dog is not entered in the studbook. On the ENCI website, besides the genealogy, you also find the show results and the titles won. That is already something. But there is a limit nobody tells you about, and it is the biggest of all: **you never see the dogs.** Not one photograph, in any generation. On the ENCI certificate you read a sequence of names with titles next to them, and you have to imagine dogs you have never seen. Of an ancestor you do not know what head it had, how it was built, whether it was a compact or a rangy dog: about the phenotype, that is what the dog really looked like, the certificate says nothing. And since selecting also means correcting a structure or fixing a type, working from names alone means working half blind. Nor does it contain: - **the genetic tests** — L2HGA, HC and DM-SOD1 do not appear - **what those dogs produced** in their litters With the ENCI certificate in hand you know that the dog is who it claims to be. You do not know what it is like, and you do not know what it passes on. ## SBTPedigree: where you really look [SBTPedigree](https://sbtpedigree.com/) is an international archive dedicated to the Staffordshire Bull Terrier, fed by breeders and owners from half the world. It is not an official document, and that is precisely what makes it useful: it contains the things the certificate cannot contain. **The photographs of the ancestors**, generation after generation, as far back as the archive goes. It is the difference between reading a name and seeing the dog: you understand what head it had, what structure, how it was built. On the SBTPedigree page of Queen of California, one of our brood bitches, you do not just read that her sire is Elitebull Prospect: you see him, and you see his sire, and his sire's sire. Four generations of photographs, side by side. Something the ENCI certificate will never be able to give you. **The genetic tests**, when whoever entered the dog has uploaded them. **The titles**, including the foreign ones that do not appear on the Italian certificate. **The progeny**, which SBTPedigree shows and the ENCI certificate does not: what that dog has produced, in which pairings, with what results. It is the information that weighs most and that no certificate gives you — a dog is also judged by what it leaves behind. ## The test mating Then there is the function I use most, and that almost nobody outside the breeding world knows: the **test mating**. You choose a male and a female, and the system builds the theoretical pedigree of the puppies that would be born from that union. From there you see two things. **Who you are inbreeding on.** The test mating shows which ancestors appear on both sides, and in which generation. That is not a fault in itself: doubling up on an excellent dog is a selection technique. It becomes a problem when you do not know you have done it. **With what percentage.** The coefficient tells you how close that pairing is, and it is a number to look at before, not after. On the ideal value there is no dogma, and it is debatable: I work **between 6 and 9 per cent**. Below that you lose the chance to fix anything, above it you tighten too much. And it is not theory: **Queen of California, Italian Junior Champion 2026, was born this way.** I studied that pairing looking for exactly that inbreeding, on those dogs, because I needed it for the subsequent work on the Elitebull lines. She is not a dog that happened: she is a dog wanted that way. The numbers are public, on [her page on SBTPedigree](https://sbtpedigree.com/dog_details?dogs_id=4844766): - **COI 9.14% over eight generations** — at the upper limit of the range I allow myself, and wanted that way - **COI 21.526% over the full pedigree**, which the site calculates over seventy generations - **Average relatedness 13.84%**, and the classification the site assigns on its own: *widespread, line-bred* - The ancestors it concentrates on: **Eastaff Tally's Man** (14 times in eight generations), **Judael Both Barrels At Nozac** and **Wyrefare Prince Naseem** (10 times each) **Two different coefficients of inbreeding for the same dog, and neither is wrong.** The coefficient depends on how many generations you count: the further back you go, the more common ancestors you find, the higher the number climbs. Anyone quoting a COI without saying over how many generations it was calculated is telling half the story — and it is an elegant way of making it look lower than it is. Of the doubled-up ancestors, the third point is the one that really matters. It is not enough to know *how much* you tighten: you need to know **on whom**. Doubling up fourteen times on one dog means betting that that dog is worth fixing — and if you are wrong, you fix its faults too. That is why a pairing is studied for months. You do not choose a male because he is handsome or because he has won: you look at what happens when those two genealogies meet. ## How to use it to check a breeder And this is where it becomes useful to someone looking for a puppy, not only to someone who breeds. **Look up the parents on SBTPedigree.** If a kennel tells you it works on certain lines, those lines are either there or they are not. The dog's name is enough to find it. **Look at what they have produced.** If a bitch has already whelped, the previous puppies are there. You see how they turned out. **Compare with what you were told.** If the two do not match, you have your answer without having to argue. And a detail worth knowing when assessing a kennel: on the ENCI website, with the **microchip number**, you can also look up the number of litters a bitch has had. It serves to check the pace of a kennel without asking anyone. ## Ours The Del Piccolo Diavolo dogs are registered on SBTPedigree, and every dog's page on this site has a direct link to its SBTPedigree page. On those pages you also find the microchip number and the studbook number, which are the two keys for the checks described above. It is not generosity: it is that a kennel that publishes those data can be checked, and one that does not cannot. [ Our females, with microchip and pedigree Eight pages: from there you reach the genealogies on SBTPedigree and check for yourself. ](/en/females-staffordshire-bull-terrier/) ### Related articles - [How to recognise a serious breeder](/en/how-to-choose-a-staffordshire-bull-terrier-breeder/) - [The bloodlines behind the breed](/en/staffy-bloodlines-guide/) - [L2-HGA and HC genetic tests: how they work](/en/staffy-genetic-testing-l2hga-hc/) - [The breed standard and type](/en/staffy-breed-standard/) --- Fonte: https://delpiccolodiavolo.it/en/how-to-read-a-pedigree/