An animal in BreederPro is described by a few separate settings. Each one answers a single question, so you never have to pick a status that is only half true.

Setting	The question it answers	Values
Status	Is the animal alive, and where is it in its life?	Active, Retired, Deceased, Litter
Breeding role	Is it part of your breeding plan?	Breeder, Evaluating, Companion
Altered	Has it been neutered or spayed?	Yes / no, with an optional date
Program enrollment	Which breeding programs does it take part in?	Any of your programs, or none
Ownership	Whose animal is it?	Owned, Placed, External
Tags	Anything else you want to label it with	Your own labels, as many as you like

Status: the animal's life

Status	Meaning
Active	Alive and with you. This is the default.
Retired	Bred for you in the past, no longer breeds, still in your care.
Deceased	Passed away. Add the Date of death too.
Litter	A baby filed under its litter that hasn't joined your main roster yet.

Status says nothing about whether an animal breeds. A neutered cat you kept and show is still Active. Use Retired only for an animal that actually bred for you.

Breeding role: is it breeding?

Role	Meaning	What BreederPro does with it
Breeder	Intact and part of your breeding plan. This is the default.	Offered as a sire or dam when you plan a mating.
Evaluating	Kept back while you decide, for example pending health tests or show results.	Shown in its own Evaluating group on the Animals page.
Companion	Kept, but not breeding: neutered or spayed, a pet, or show-only.	Left out of the sire and dam pickers for new matings and planned-mating checks.

These three roles are fixed, because BreederPro acts on them. For any other label, use a tag. Kittens and puppies filed under a litter start as Evaluating.

Changing a role never changes your animal count or plan limits.

Altered

Turn on Altered when an animal has been neutered or spayed, and add the date if you know it. This is a health fact, kept separate from the breeding role. Most altered animals are also Companion.

Program enrollment

Enrolling an animal in a breeding program means it takes part in that program's breeding. Enrollment is separate from status: taking an animal out of a program (on the program's Animals tab) doesn't change its status, and changing its status doesn't take it out of a program.

Ownership

Ownership	Meaning
Owned	Your animal. This is the default.
Placed	Went to a new home (sold or rehomed), with the buyer recorded as a contact. The records stay, but it leaves your roster. Its page and its litter show Placed with the buyer.
External	Never yours. A pedigree-only record for an ancestor or an outside stud.

Placing an animal

Use Mark as placed at the top of the animal's page, in its row menu on the litter, or on its Advanced tab. Marking a family placed on the waitlist (with Record the sale on the animal ticked) and an AI assistant's placement do the same thing. Placing changes these settings together:

Ownership: Placed, with the buyer recorded as the owner and the go-home date.
Status: Litter becomes Active, because a placed baby is no longer waiting under its litter. Retired also becomes Active when the animal has never been a sire or dam (no matings, no recorded kittens or puppies): Retired means a former breeder, and an animal that never bred was probably marked Retired only because there was no Placed option before. A retired breeder and a Deceased animal keep their status.
Breeding role: Companion. An animal you don't own doesn't breed for you, so the role badge is hidden while it is placed.
Program enrollment: it is taken out of every breeding program.

Its litter, pedigree, contacts, health records and journal are kept.

Creating a contract or invoice for a buyer and an animal never places the animal. Only Mark as placed does. The animal's contracts and invoices are listed on its Info tab.

When a placed animal comes back

On the animal's Advanced tab, click Mark as Owned and confirm. It becomes owned again, its status goes back to Active (a retired or deceased animal keeps its status), and it rejoins the breeding program of the litter it was born in. Its breeding role doesn't change, so set it on the Info tab (for example Breeder if it will breed, or keep Companion). Its Recent activity shows Marked as owned (returned from ...).

The previous owner stays on record as a contact, but the animal is no longer listed under their Placed animals, and they lose the Buyer badge if nothing else is placed with them. Their timeline keeps Took home and adds Returned with the date.

Examples

A neutered male you kept and show

Status: Active
Breeding role: Companion
Altered: Yes, with the date
Tag: show
Program: removed from the breeding program

A kitten kept back to see how it develops

Status: Active
Breeding role: Evaluating
Program: stays enrolled

A kitten that went to a new home

Ownership: Placed (use Mark as placed so the buyer and date are recorded)
Status: Active
Breeding role: Companion
Program: removed from every program

A queen who has finished breeding and stays with you

Status: Retired
Breeding role: Breeder (or Companion once she is spayed)

Reviewing retired animals

Before breeding roles existed, the only way to show that an animal had stopped breeding was to mark it Retired. If you have retired animals that never had a mating or offspring recorded, the Animals page shows a one-time Review these animals notice. For each one, you can make it Active and Companion with one click, or keep it as it is. Nothing changes unless you choose it, because some animals bred for someone else before you imported them and really are retired.

AI assistants and imports

If you use an AI assistant through the BreederPro connector, it follows the same rules. It sets the breeding role and tags directly and never writes them into custom fields or notes. CSV imports can fill the breeding role and tags from Breeding role and Tags columns (separate several tags with commas).

How animal status works