SQL Server foreign key constraint problem

I have 2 tables :

dog dogowner

I am trying to create a foreign key from DogOwner to Dog but not on the Primary Key of the dog table. I am planning to create my own unique id's for the dog table's dog_id column. Herewith the schemas :

CREATE TABLE dog( id INT NOT NULL identity(1,1), dog_id INT NOT NULL, dog_name VARCHAR (200) NOT NULL, create_date DATETIME NOT NULL, update_date DATETIME DEFAULT getutcdate(), start_date DATETIME DEFAULT getutcdate(), end_date DATETIME DEFAULT getDate() - 101, is_active BIT NOT NULL DEFAULT '0', PRIMARY KEY (id,dog_id) ); CREATE TABLE dogowner( dogowner_id INT NOT NULL IDENTITY(1,1) PRIMARY KEY, dog_id INT NOT NULL, FOREIGN KEY (dog_id) REFERENCES dog(dog_id) );

As soon as I create the foreign key constraint on the dogowner table it fails with the following error :

There are no primary or candidate keys in the referenced table 'dog' that match the referencing column list in the foreign key 'FK__dogowner__dog_id__00AA174D'. > UPDATE :

So eventually I dropped the complicated Schema design and opted for history tables on every table that I want to version.So the dog table will have a dog_history or dog_log table with a post insert/update done on all the history tables.

This is not the way I wanted to do it but it allows me to have foreign key constraints in my database, soft deletes and logging of data. Thanks all for the input. I am following the KISS principle.

The dog_id field needs to be unique field, the following will work:

create table dog( id int not null identity(1,1), dog_id int unique not null, dog_name varchar(200) not null, create_date datetime not null , update_date datetime default getutcdate(), start_date datetime default getutcdate(), end_date datetime default getDate() - 101, is_active bit not null default '0', primary key(id,dog_id) ); create table dogowner( dogowner_id int not null identity(1,1) primary key, dog_id int not null, foreign key(dog_id) references dog(dog_id) );

From the MSFT documentation :

You can use UNIQUE constraints to make sure that no duplicate values are entered in specific columns that do not participate in a primary key. Although both a UNIQUE constraint and a PRIMARY KEY constraint enforce uniqueness, use a UNIQUE constraint instead of a PRIMARY KEY constraint when you want to enforce the uniqueness of a column, or combination of columns, that is not the primary key.

Hope this helps