is not quite correct. The AKC does not assign a number to the first one.
Open the Dog Name Check [1]. Pick a breed, enter a unique dog name, and the page will report it is available. Now pick a semi-unique combination ("Shih Tzu" + "King") and the page will say "The name chosen has been used previously, but may be used with the following change: King XXXVII." This implies the first person to pick "King" got "King" and the second person got "King II."
One dog per breed can have the name Spot/King/etc. But the AKC is a rent-seeking monopoly and 6 Roman numerals is short enough to still appear somewhat exclusive.
I don't really have a... dog in this hunt... but anyone could start up their own dog registry with whatever rules they want. I don't believe the AKC has preempted competition via regulatory capture, for example.
For what it’s worth, there are a lot of other dog registries. Unfortunately, many of them seem to be associated with backyard breeders who look for registries with more lax rules to legitimize their stock.
I think it's more like how it's Pope Francis and not Pope Francis I, since he's the first Pope Francis, you don't add the number. We will only do that after the fact, i.e. when another pope chooses the name Francis.
So grandparent's point isn't that it's off by one, but that the first name is inaccurate for the time it was rewarded. Although, considering we are viewing it _after the fact_, i.e. now that more dogs are called the same, I think it's fair to add the "I" at the end.
No, they only allow 6 characters for the number of the dog. To write 38 in Roman numerals requires 7 characters. So that's why they only allow 37 of the same name.
Open the Dog Name Check [1]. Pick a breed, enter a unique dog name, and the page will report it is available. Now pick a semi-unique combination ("Shih Tzu" + "King") and the page will say "The name chosen has been used previously, but may be used with the following change: King XXXVII." This implies the first person to pick "King" got "King" and the second person got "King II."
One dog per breed can have the name Spot/King/etc. But the AKC is a rent-seeking monopoly and 6 Roman numerals is short enough to still appear somewhat exclusive.
[1] https://www.apps.akc.org/apps/reg/namecheck/index.cfm