With people selling Labradoodles and cockapoos, saying it is a new hypoallergenic
breed. I would never buy a mix, just because it has a ridiculous name, but I would consider a dog of a new breed,if the breeders do health checks and breed for temperament.
In order to be a legitamate breed, does the breed have to be recognized by the AKC or a proper registry? Been around for at least 10 years?
When it has a club.
It’s rather arbitrary.
It’s a fuzzy line, really.
Generally the rule of thumb is that the dogs have to “breed true” - that is, if you mate two dogs of the same breed, you get a puppy that looks like the parents instead of displaying, say, traits from a grandparent that aren’t present in either parent.
As an example of “breeds” that aren’t really breeds, the four varieties of the Belgian Sheepdog are the Groenendael, the Malinois, the Tervuren and the Laekenois. These do not breed true and you can get one variety from two dogs of another. For this reason many organisations just call them all “Belgian Sheepdogs”.
Apologies for reviving the thread.
Good explanation.
Yes and no. Those are really just coat characteristics. The size and structure of these breeds is consistent, as are the other characteristics, of appearance, of temperament and of the working qualities (both herding and police/rescue, etc. work). I’ve never had one, but I used to show in the Working group (the Belgian breeds and others that are primarily herding dogs have had their own group for many years now), and I found consistency in type (structure and appearance) in the Belgians to be excellent. I might even say superior, considering that they’re not especially common; that bespeaks a strong coterie of committed and discriminating breeders.
BTW, there are only three varieties of Belgians that are currently shown in the US - Tervuren (looks tricolor, but if the breed history I scanned tonight is correct, would require a dominant mutation - quite unlikely), Malinois (short coat, but not really “smooth”), and “Sheepdogs” (the black ones). The AKC is a much better resource for 'Merkan dogs and 'Merkan people, BTW. The CKC does it a little differently, and they recognize the Laeken. Not sure, but the CKC may have closer ties with the FCI (Fédération Cynologique Internationale), which would help explain it, although I think that Mexico is still the only country in North America where a dog can earn points toward an International Championship. I did find a page for a Laekenois organization, which states they’re working toward AKC recognition.
Another resource for dog information is Dog Breed Information Center. Since AFAIK they have no screening policy, I’d recommend extreme caution about using them to search for a dog breeder. They’ve got some nice photos and stuff. Here in the US the three varieties are registered as separate breeds. If someone bred them together, the pups would be viewed as mutts by the AKC.
If the breeder has good information about the pedigrees and understands basic dominants and recessives, I suppose that the varieties could be bred together in some place where the stud books weren’t separate. Wire coat is dominant, period, in all critters I’m aware of, and I’d think nobody in their right mind would breed one of the other varieties to a Laeken, although that’s almost certainly the ancestor to the rest. Their coat is described as “yellow”, but agouti can look yellow, and they do have dark “points”. Depending on the other colors, black is either straight dominant or straight recessive. The Tervuren certainly look like they’re the result of an agouti gene to me. If so, that’s dominant over black. The Malinois is definitely agouti. Dunno about the dominance between short and long coats, but short should be dominant - at least short (not smooth).
As for establishing a new breed, it’s easier to get actual breeds from elsewhere in the world listed with the CKC than with the AKC. AAMOF, such breed fanciers in the US will sometimes cooperate with Canadian fanciers to get listing there, and register their breeding there for that purpose. However, in the US, the more usual refuge for people trying to establish a rare (or new) breed is the UKC (United Kennel Club), which is mostly used by breeders of an assortment of hunting dogs (hounds), with the occasional other type for reasons already given.
If I had that kind of ambition and money - and were young enough to contemplate breeding ten or twenty generations of dogs, to be sure of getting the character of my new breed established (IIRC Herr Dobermann spent 46 years at it, and there was still a lot of variation in type a hundred years ago - after his time) - I’d probably use the UKC approach … after I’d done 7 or 8 generations (if that were enough; it might be, with lots and lots of luck and serious culling) to begin seeing consistent appearance and temperament.
When a new breed is created, it generally takes considerably more than ten years to stabilize it. It took Herr Dobermann a lifetime. Of course, he had a very complex recipe; he used several different breeds - of varying sizes. To this day (unless they’ve changed the rules in the last 20 years), missing teeth is a disqualification in a show Dobie.