Dutch Shepherd Forum

I'm currently watching a comment debate on a DS Facebook group that started after someone asked if as long as a dog was brindle = dutch and fawn = mal...

seems to be a lot of people that think crossbreeding the two is almost standard practice and that the only real difference is coat color

am I the only one that is kinda annoyed by this?

I'm watching people comment back and forth saying that not only is crossing popular in the states for working dogs but also (allegedly) very common in Europe

I'll admit I know only the basics of the history of the breed...but to my knowledge (and correct me if I'm wrong) they are two <i>separate</i> and <i>established</i> breeds, right?

I know there are people that cross the two for working purposes and there was a small occurrence of adding Mals to try to diversify the gene pool correct? But that doesn't mean there's so much DS/Mal shared heritage that a random fawn pup makes it a Mal and a random brindle pup makes it a Dutch

...or am I crazy?

I've seen people say that fawn colored DSDs are considered Malinois, but that's not correct. They are separate breeds. Fawn is a recessive gene. Both parents must carry the gene for a pup to turn out fawn. People do crossbreed them, but the resulting pups are considered cross breeds, not one or the other.

I'm seeing a lot of people crossing DSDs with GSDs lately, too. WHY???

that's pretty much what I figured/thought...

I only followed the comment thread for so long before I got annoyed and had to ignore it...there were MANY people (who considered themselves experts of the breed) pretty much saying fawn = mal/bridle = dutch, and that crossing DS/Mal is standard practive...and many newbies commenting back, thanking them for the information

I understand the DS is its own breed. However a DS to DS breeding that throws fawns are considered Mals by the KNPV. Just saying.

stillfan45 wrote:I understand the DS is its own breed. However a DS to DS breeding that throws fawns are considered Mals by the KNPV. Just saying.

That doesn't mean anything, though. They can consider them to be Mals all day long. It doesn't make them Mals.

I hear you, I'm only telling you it's common practice. And for what it's worth my DS breeding the Mals (fawns) act nothing like the Dutchies. Call it an anomaly....... but it's interesting

http://www.vankamphuis.com/dutchiehistory.pdf




"Unlike the dog sport programs such as IPO, Schutzhund, and even French Ring, the KNPV has no requirement for dogs to hold an FCI or official pedigree. In fact, around about 90% of the dogs titled in the KNPV program do not have FCI or official pedigrees. The KNPV program believes that official pedigrees are not required to produce quality police dogs - and the continuing success of the program has proven this to be true. Although a little controversial, most would have to agree that generally most dogs that successfully obtained a KNPV title would be capable of obtaining IPO and Schutzhund titles, where as, the same could not be said of as many Schutzhund or IPO titled dogs being capable of achieving KNPV Police Dog Titles.
The difference with the unregistered Dutch Shepherds found in the KNPV program is that they have a strong influence of Malinois blood in them. Without the restriction of official registration or pedigree, the definition of whether a dog is a Malinois or a Dutch Shepherd, primarily comes down to appearance. When a Malinois is bred to a Dutch Shepherd some of the pups will be born with a Fawn coat and will be known as a Malinois, while others will be born with a brindle coat and will be known as a Dutch Shepherd. One legendry KNPV Dutch Shepherd was Arras Pegge. While Arras had a Dutch Shepherd for a mother his father was a Malinois. This simple classification process has allowed the unregistered Dutch Shepherd (and unregistered Malinois for that matter) to develop and maintain a large gene pool for breeding. Although the unregistered Dutch Shepherd can carry a good deal of Malinois blood, people often comment that they still maintain the often desirable traits of the Dutch Shepherd, that is, a highly driven, sometimes stubborn dog with more calmness than a Malinois. They are also often described as “a Malinois with an off switch!”

I have a fawn coloured DS and people who think they know Mals wrongly assume he is one. Even when I took him as a young pup to puppy classes the woman who ran the classes said sarcastically "looks more like a Mal to me". He most definitely is a DS - I've seen his parents who are both DS's as well as his litter mates. My husband as a police dog handler knows both breeds and they have different charactersistics.

The whole idea is that none of these working/sport folks care. They call if a malinois or DS based on looks because it's easy and because it doesn't matter. I decided years ago to call the dogs based on the mother or whatever the owner wanted to call it. It made it easy for me. The world didn't end because a fawn DS was called a malinois when there were brindle dogs with more malinois in them registered in an open studbook country. There can't be a random brindle dog either. 2 brindles make a brindle of fawn. 2 fawns will never make a brindle. What's interesting is the AKC lists brindle as an acceptable, but disqualifying color for the belgian malinois, meaning they can do performance, but not compete in conformation. I find it funny that even though 2 fawn malinois could not produce a brindle, AKC and the parent club still considered brindle dogs to have close enough heritage to add it as a color. Years ago, before the breed was FSS, and before AKC accepted all american (mixed) breeds for performance, agility, and obedience folk where registering their DS as brindle malinois in AKC alternative purebred so they could have more venues to play in.

They are two separate breeds, but the DS isn't a fully separate/established breed and in America with the majority of the registered dogs being listed with UKC and coming from a KNPV mixed background, it gets even more blurry. Honestly, I don't get why people that own a working dog are so hung up on what makes a purebred. The idea of purebred is entirely subjective to the use of the animal. In livestock, it's usually 3-5 generations that makes something "purebred" and outcrosses don't instantly make any future generation not "pure" as long as they're done correctly and recorded correctly. My dogs are registered with UKC, USDAA, and AKC Canine Partners for performance events. They're listed as purebred dogs, although only Elli is UKC registered by birth. She has malinois and terv behind her, about 4 generations back, but one of her ancestors was able to be listed as foundation stock with UKC and the official purebred status started with them. There are plenty of working breeds, like border collies, that have lines that don't play into the purebred AKC breed ring games either. That doesn't make them less of the breed. I do like how UKC has the purple ribbon classification to establish a difference between dogs that have met a certain number of registered generations though.

The AKC and FCI aren't the be all end all and FCI purebred status means nothing in the US other than the fact that an unaltered dog can play in AKC events and dogs can participate in international IPO championships. UKC is the largest purebred registry in the world and there are foundation dogs in our breed that were originally registered by color alone, yet because the FCI kennel clubs have more money and political pull, their definition of purebred is what more people consider right.

There are still open studbooks in a few countries and up until a few years ago, the studbooks were open in the parent country. What that means is a dog that looks like a DS and is approved as one in person by a licensed breed judge or via photos and has a few generations of brindle behind them (depending on the specific kennel club's requirement) will be issued papers stating they're a Dutch Shepherd. If the country that issues the papers is a FCI member or in an agreement with the FCI, those dogs are listed as FCI purebred the same as one from a closed studbook country with generations of FCI dogs behind them. They will have a different color paper as they're foundation stock, but are considered "purebred" and allowed the same privileges of breeding and competing. Technically, in some kennel clubs, you can have a Dutch Shepherd with 1 fawn parent issued FCI papers if the studbook is still open. Now, the current AKC parent club in charge of the FSS dogs have been trying to exclude dogs brought in from those open countries, although it is currently against the AKC/FCI agreement to do so.

The same could be done with a fawn dog being labelled as a malinois, but as far as I know, the belgian breeds have had closed studbooks for a while. If they were still open, you could have a case of fawn and brindle dogs in the litter getting foundation registration as two separate breeds. In the case of open studbooks, it's very much color=breed as long as the rest of the standard follows suit. The standard, as written now, will fit a brindle dog that is almost completely malinois. It was the same way when UKC and some FCI countries 1st accepted the White Shepherds as a separate breed. White=White Shepherd or Swiss Shepherd, Other colors=GSD. Now, there are still some White GSDs registered as such. Some folks call them GSDs, some would call them White Shepherds. UKC has clearly defined the dividing line between the two now, so for their records and shows they can define purebred.

Cross breeding is still a standard practice and why shouldn't it be? Why do we need 1000 generations of the same color to work for the military, police, or in sport? As long as the breeder isn't just adding stripes to their poor quality mals to make more money and is actually doing the health tests and proving their working stock, why does it matter? There are so many hung papers in the AKC with other breeds anyway, at least most of the good sport folks are honest about the pedigrees including malinois. The parent country breed club that the AKC parent club aligns with doesn't even require hip certification for the breed, but yet they focus on only allowing FCI purebreds in. Now within the Belgians, some countries allow interbreeding and register a short hair as a malinois, a long fawn as a tervuren, etc. In AKC that doesn't happen. They're considered as much of a separate breed as the malinois/DS are, yet they're still commonly crossed elsewhere. So does that make labeling a Groendael vs Terv litter based solely on color wrong because they're two "established" and "seperate" breeds according to AKC?

In the KNPV program is about color=breed because all they need is a classification to list the dogs under. It's the same way with any performance registration through AKC or UKC, or USDAA, or CPE or any flyball org. I can send in a fawn dog from brindle parents and register it with UKC as a malinois for performance only without neutering it. They only require photos for their performance listings and no longer require them to be altered. The only exception is they can't play in the breed ring (conformation). I could also registered a brindle dog out of mal/DS parents as a DS for performance only.

Mobil wrote:

stillfan45 wrote:I understand the DS is its own breed. However a DS to DS breeding that throws fawns are considered Mals by the KNPV. Just saying.

That doesn't mean anything, though. They can consider them to be Mals all day long. It doesn't make them Mals.

It's perspective. You can consider them fawn DS all day long, but that's only because your classification system is based on the traditional kennel club approach to labeling dogs using the already established breeds. I know Christie has produced fawn dogs. Since her dogs are UKC registered, she can rightfully call all of the colors purebred Dutch Shepherds registered with the UKC. She cannot call them FCI purebred Dutch Shepherds. She also can't call the fawn ones FCI purebred Malinois because they are neither. If the fawn owner registered the dog with AKC partners as a malinois, and AKC approved the breed by photos, he can call it a malinois.

I could make a kennel club that labelled dogs over 60lbs as giant Dutch Shepherds and dogs under 50lbs as mini Dutch Shepherds (Elli would, of course, be the foundation bitch even though she's spayed ) and the 50-60lb range would be standards. I could then declare that your FCI registed 65lb dog was not a purebred standard Dutch Shepherd, but rather a Giant one and I wouldn't be wrong. You also wouldn't be wrong if you went to an FCI IPO championship and entered it in the regular Dutch Shepherd class.

for Stephanie.

Tacking on to what Lyons said. Basically I don't think it's bonkers that people across the ocean (going with KNPV standards here) look at the coat color and determine what label it gets. There's a reason why these dog breeds have managed to stay so healthy and I'm betting that the way they're labeled has everything to do with it (That and breeding for work quality, not looks) It's no secret that AKC breeding has destroyed dog breeds and continues to deteriorate existing breeds. It's why law enforcement agencies in the States are having to reach out across the ocean to get their dogs, because in the end they don't care about the pretty papers and what their dogs are. All they want is a dog that will work and CONTINUE to work in good health, because it makes no sense to pour thousands of dollars into an animal with poor genetics that might be a crapshot in 6-10 years. And that's all that should matter in a dog. Unless you're a breeder or a show person, that pretty piece of paper is only good for bragging rights.

LyonsFamily wrote:Honestly, I don't get why people that own a working dog are so hung up on what makes a purebred. The idea of purebred is entirely subjective to the use of the animal. In livestock, it's usually 3-5 generations that makes something "purebred" and outcrosses don't instantly make any future generation not "pure" as long as they're done correctly and recorded correctly.

I actually find it sad that this is not done more often with other breeds. I think a lot of the registered purebreds could greatly benefit from some outcrossing...WHY IS there such a hangup abuot this among so many purebred dog breeders? Its not like anybody is crossing a DS with a Chow and calling them Longhaired DS

Apparantly their definaition of purebred is all about what's on PAPER not on what the dog can do, how healthy is it...etc. My DS Logan's grandmother was a GSD, you could never tell.

LyonsFamily wrote:Cross breeding is still a standard practice and why shouldn't it be? Why do we need 1000 generations of the same color to work for the military, police, or in sport?

AMEN.

Enzo's parents were malinois. He was one of two bundles that came out. He's a monster but love em the same.

NWDS wrote:Enzo's parents were malinois. He was one of two bundles that came out. He's a monster but love em the same.

How is that possible? It's my understanding that two fawns can't have brindle offspring, because brindle is dominant.

Mobil wrote:

NWDS wrote:Enzo's parents were malinois. He was one of two bundles that came out. He's a monster but love em the same.

How is that possible? It's my understanding that two fawns can't have brindle offspring, because brindle is dominant.

You can't from 2 fawns, assuming he meant brindle and not bundle. If one of the parents was a black malinois, they could've been masking the brindle.

My dog was imported from the Netherlands, is very brindle and I don't care what breed he is considered to be. He is from a long line of working dogs who are bred based on ability and without regard to color. There were both brindle and fawn pups in his litter. His mother is fawn and his mother's littermate is one of the best working dogs I know.............also fawn.

Why get all wrapped around the axle about what to call him. If he can't work it doesn't matter to me what breed he is. If he can work it doesn't matter to me what breed he is.

But that's just me.

This is interesting to me.

I call my DS a DS because he is brindle and called my Mal a Mal because he is fawn. Most of the people I run with do the same. I honestly don't care what he's called as long as he works when called upon.

I actually feel I have the best of both worlds. Worm is small and compact like the KNPV mom and was Finn is a taller, lanky and their personalities are worlds apart (they were raised differently and I got Finn at 5 months where he spent the ENTIRE time isolated by himself, with occasional outing to a club, I could start a whole thread on the problems/isolation/behavior issues that Finn has, I believe mostly due to the fact he was isolated esc..) and Worm was a 3 time return as he was "to intense" (more on that later).

Worm and Finn (AKC mal x UKC dam) are pictured below together-same little full brothers. I just think it's easier to call them like that, plus since the DS are brindle most people just call him a dutch (so instead of saying actually crossbreed dutch x mal, I just call him a dutch). working at the training facility or dock diving or people who are really working, I talk about him being a cross. Plus his chest and toes give it away, most people who know DS usually say Mal too?.

Either way, I feel very fortunate to have Worm and am seriously impressed with his skills, he so darn forgiving but has so much drive. He really is a gem. I told one of the trainers, I feel really fortunate to have such a good dog as my first true working dog for IPO, he responded or or second or third or lifetime.

edit-I used to have Finn I no longer have him.

If it's brown it's a Mal, if it's striped it's a Dutchie. My dog Asia is a Dutchie and she had four siblings from the same litter that were Mal's. Course her mom was a Mal and her dad a Dutch.