“Why doesn’t my dog’s name include all their titles on WeSmellBetter?” (or “yes, I AM a robot!”)

The most frequently asked questions we get is “why doesn’t my dog’s name  reflect all their titles in the WeSmellBetter reports?”   So let’s talk about that.

Our goal at WeSmellBetter is to always have our data match the published AKC Results data.  Whenever anyone writes that something in our reports is “wrong,” we investigate that claim.  I’ll create a separate post that talks about “exceptions,” situations where we know that the WeSmellBetter reports and database do not reflect “reality” but even in those cases, we firmly believe that our data does accurately report the AKC published results.

This particular question, however, is just a matter of timing.  The WeSmellBettter reports use the most recent name reported in the published AKC Scent Work results.   And that name is the one that the dog had when they started that particular trial.

Let’s take my dog, Gabe, as an example.

On April 22, 2023, we entered a trial needing 1 Master Container qualifying score to earn Gabe’s Scent Work Master (SWM) title.  He qualified in Containers — good boy!  Here is a screen capture I took on February 15, 2025, of that qualifying score from the AKC Results:

You’ll note that this accurately reflects the fact that he had not yet earned the SWM when he entered this trial.  All of his other Qs for this trial show the same name — as of that trial, he hadn’t earned the title.

It was a multi-day event, and I had sent my entry form weeks prior.  The Trial Secretary certainly made no update in Gabe’s reported name in the results.  But, having processed the submitted results and awarded the title, the AKC published results for the trial held the next day show his new title:

Again, that is the data as it was published publicly by the AKC, the data we collect and use to create our reports. Anybody can go look at it anytime, and we absolutely encourage people to do that.  WeSmellBetter reports is never a substitute for the actual AKC results, just a helpful (we hope) compilation and re-formatting.

But, if Gabe had never had that “next day,” if he had never gotten a qualifying Scent Work score AFTER the trial in which he earned the title, the “Most Recent Name Reported in the AKC Results” would be the first one, and his name throughout the  WeSmellBetter reports would be “Karesque I’M Going Places CA BCAT SWE SIM SEM SBM TKN” even though the reports would show that he had earned the SWM Title.

So if your dog’s name as reported by WeSmellBetter doesn’t reflect all their titles, there are two questions

1. Have they had a qualifying score in a Scent Work trial AFTER the trial in which they earned the title?  If not, that is the reason the title string remains frozen in time.  If the dog is retired from Scent Work competition, we can make that update for you in our database as a courtesy; otherwise, we’d ask that you just wait for that next Q.
2. If they have had a qualifying Scent Work score since then, have those results been published yet by the AKC?  Results typically are published by the AKC about two weeks after the trial, but that is not a fixed interval – – they publish results when they publish results.  We process new results every night so the update in the name should be there in WeSmellBetter reports the day after the results showing the new name were published by the AKC.

Keep in mind that this is true for ALL titles; if your dog took a break from Scent Work to earn titles in other areas — Rally Obedience, Lure Coursing, Barn Hunt, Therapy dog, Conformation, whatever — we won’t know about those until their next Q in Scent Work.

But, if the name shown in the most recent published AKC Scent Work results is not the name on the WeSmellBetter reports — we definitely want to hear about that!

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Now, some people will say “but when I go to the AKC website and look up my dog, their website shows the updated name.”  And, yes, that’s absolutely true.  But what they are doing is accessing the REGISTRY database, the “dog lookup,” rather than the published Scent Work Results.

So why can’t WeSmellBetter do *that* to get the dog’s proper name?

Well, we probably could.  But the AKC provides that lookup as a tool for pedigree research, so that people can find the accomplishments of various dogs.  They used to allow a Dog Lookup without requiring that a person log in first.  However, they now require registration (which is free) and you be logged in.  And if you look up enough dogs, their website will eventually request a “Captcha” verification that says “I’m not a robot.”

The Registry is AKC’s bread and butter.  The database of all the dogs is their single greatest asset.  I can easily see why they wouldn’t want a “robot” — a data scraper — to go in and attempt to collect that information.  It is generous that they make the results publicly available, with no registration or login required.  Based on a long history of organizations that read and publish the results for other AKC events besides Scent Work trials (Front & Finish for Obedience and Rally, Bad Dog Agility for Agility, etc), it seems to us as though the AKC tacitly approves of this value-added use of their data.

But to attempt to scrape info beyond the login, or to work around the Captcha would not just be difficult, it would be operating in bad faith.  Because we are, effectively, a robot.  And we appreciate the reason the AKC doesn’t want robots rummaging around in that part of their database.

So, while we have the computer, the ‘robot,’ compile the data from the published Scent Work results,  the Dog Lookups and Points Progression lookups that we do on the AKC website are done by us as “real people.”  And if you request a title update for your dog that will not be earning another Scent Work Q, we will log in and type in the registration number to get the AKC’s most recent “name” for your dog and update that in our database.

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Lastly, some folks ask “if you know my dog has earned the title, why can’t you just add it to the name you put on the top of the report?”

Well, we could.   But that would be silly, because only the AKC can grant a title.  In the end, it doesn’t matter what our data says when it comes to answering the question “what titles does my dog have,” only what the AKC Registry Database shows.  In the “Exceptions” post, I’ll go into the situations where our data absolutely does accurately reflect AKC published results but still doesn’t support the titles the AKC has granted.  But it’s definitely not our place to ever modify your dog’s title string.

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So I hope that makes sense.  If not, or especially if you’ve got a question about your dog’s data as we report it, please Contact Us using the link at the top of the website; We REALLY appreciate comments left here on the blog but we don’t always (okay, ever) get notification about them, and are working with WordPress on that.