Among the best things the American Field Publishing Company did for field trailers was to institute the DNA testing requirement. Why?
Before DNA testing many ways to cheat on representing the parentage of bird dogs existed and were frequently used by the unscrupulous. Here is one example.
Suppose you owned a stud dog and wanted to enhance its reputation and increase the revenue it produced. How could you do it? A favorite trick was to send a good bitch you owned to be bred by a proven strong sire owned by a breeder who agreed to refund the stud fee if a successful pregnancy did not result or guaranteed a return service. The unscrupulous would lie and report their bitch did not become pregnant from the breeding when in fact she had a successful litter, which her unscrupulous owner registered as sired by his stud dog. If the pups turned out to be winners the unscrupulous owner’s stud fee income increased, his stud’s reputation enhanced by the fraud.
Fanciful? Hardly. The DNA requirement put a stop to this fraud.