Dear readers,

The 2015 General Meeting of the FCI once again placed its trust in me by re-electing me as President of the most important canine organisation in the world, an honour which I appreciate enormously!

I remain fully committed to working hard via our basic principles. Now, more than ever, I promise to defend the rights of our dogs and their owners, to watch over their health and to raise awareness worldwide of what a healthy dog means to society, and I feel sure that all of you will help me in this work.

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Rafael de Santiago
President of the FCI
CACIB: how does it work?

How does the FCI General Secretariat confirm a CACIB

The CACIB Department, whose core responsibility is the processing of a CACIB (Certificat d’Aptitude au Championnat International de Beauté), can be seen from different perspectives, depending on the stage of the CACIB proposal. Let us try to explore this process in more detail through a chronological breakdown.

Schedule: upstream development of planning for shows

To collate the results and catalogues (sent by the NCOs), the files for the various shows planned for the following weekend are created during the week. Starting on the Monday after the show, requests1 to turn a Reserve CACIB into a CACIB begin to arrive at the FCI General Secretariat (by email or post) and are entered in the files already created. These requests for conversion of reserves can only be processed on the basis of the official results sent by the national canine organisation sponsoring the dog show.

The conversion of a reserve CACIB is never dependent on the "use" or otherwise of the CACIB.
The CACIB is not reclaimed by the reserve, the reserve is changed2 into a CACIB.

Dog show: CACIB and reserve CACIB proposals are distributed by the judges throughout the world.

The national canine organisations then have three months to gather (from the organisers), compile, check and format the results of the dog shows organised in their country. These results, together with the catalogue, must reach the FCI General Secretariat within this period. The results can only be used when both of these elements (catalogue AND list of results) are received by the FCI Secretariat. As the files are processed in the order in which they are received, the date on which the FCI General Secretariat has access to the catalogue and the full list of results is of great importance.

Receipt: the FCI General Secretariat enters the date on which the results and the catalogue are received into the FCI database. When the results and the catalogue are in our possession, the processing can begin.

The results are then checked. We make sure that the 10 elements required for the data entry and confirmation are included in the lists (catalogue nr, name of dog, stud book, registration nr in the stud book, sex, breed and variety, date of birth, name of owner, name of judge and the class in which the CACIB was awarded). Checks are also made to ensure that all the dogs included in the results are also in the catalogue, which is why it is crucial that the numbering in the catalogue begins at 1 and continues without interruption throughout the catalogue until the final entry.

When it has been confirmed that the results may be used by the Secretariat, they are released for use by our different services. If this is not the case, a correction request is sent to the national canine organisation in question, the documents are checked again (when we receive the amendments) and a new date of receipt is entered, if all the required elements are present and correct.

In order to reduce the waiting time between receiving the results and their final confirmation (which can sometimes be quite long, depending on the number3 of results received), the Secretariat uses the results before confirmation, although only in two very specific cases: conversion of reserve CACIBs and requests for confirmation of international titles. It should, however, be noted that even when the reserve has been converted or the CIB/CIE title confirmed, the CACIBs will only be available on line4 when all of the results have been processed and confirmed.

Confirmation: our services confirm the CACIB proposals in accordance with the arrival date of the full and correct results. The FCI General Secretariat is responsible for ensuring that the dogs proposed meet all of the approved conditions for confirmation of the CACIB.

When the results of a show are entered, the processing of the CACIB proposal requires additional information for some dogs. A list is then generated with the missing data for checking and confirmation. This list is sent5 when all of the results have been entered.

Posting on line: our website is updated overnight on Sunday-Monday, when all of the results entered during the previous week are posted.

Due to the availability of the results on line, it is no longer necessary to send them to the national canine organisations and then send out a CACIB to each winner. The owner has (almost6) immediate access to the CACIB once it has been entered. The owner is then free to save it digitally or print it out in the format of his/her choice.

If the CACIB is not available in the list of results on line, this does not mean that it has not been considered, only that additional details are required to confirm it and that the FCI General Secretariat is waiting for a reply from the national canine organisation.

If, on the other hand, there is an error in the list of results or on the CACIB, an email7 accompanied by the pedigree and the judgment slip will enable this error to be corrected swiftly.

And afterwards...?

On the way to an international title! You can find out about this other FCI department in a future edition.

Jean-Charles Corliano
CACIB Department


1 Application form available on our website http://www.fci.be/en/FCI-International-Championship-41.html

2 This means that 2 CACIBs will be allocated.

3 1045 dog shows took place in 2014 with a total of 160,000 dogs confirmed.

4 See below.

5 There are actually 2 lists: one for the organisers and another for the different national canine organisations; the latter concerns requests for verification of pure origins.

6 Depending on when the website is updated

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