Titles

Interpreting the “alphabet soup” that is AKC and other titles around a dog’s registered name takes a bit of practice. It’s relatively easy if you are already familiar with what each titles means, but there are over 200 distinct suffix titles offered by the AKC alone, plus those offered by other organiztions or by parent breed clubs.

What follows is a list of some of the titles. If you’ve run across one and don’t see it here, please feel free to drop us a line and ask us to update our list. These titles are also used in the “title decoder” tool.

(There are even more listed on the AKC’s “Titles and Abbreviations” page.)

As a rule of thumb, each term in the list is composed of some initial letters that indicate the event, and a final letter which indicates the level of achievement. (And like any good rule of thumb, there are, of course, exceptions.) Note that when a more-advanced title is earned in a given event, it typically replaces the previous one in the alphabet soup. For example, when a dog with a “CGC” (Canine Good Citizen) title earns its “CGCA” (Canine Good Citizen Advanced) title, instead of “CGC CGCA”, you’d just see “CGCA”.

• Titles by event
• Titles alphabetically