What Defines A “Breed”?
ByDog Experts…please explain the following…
What exactly, defines or legitamizes a “breed” as a “breed”?
For example, America’s best known kennel club, the AKC, has been lax in accepting puppymill breeders for years including being half-hearted in verifying their DNA…and of course, breeds existed long before the AKC, so the AKC doesn’t “define” or “legitimize” a breed…it merely selects particular breeds it feels are popular enough or distinctive enough to merit inclusion.
Then there’s other kennel clubs, like the Continental Kennel Club, or the National Kennel Club, who include many many more breeds than the AKC, yet are considered even less thorough in their vetting of breeders than the AKC is.
Then there’s breeds that have long, rich histories, responsible breeders, and distinctive specifications, such as the Catahoula Leopard Dog, the Blue Lacy, and the Dogo Argentino, who’s breeders DON’T WANT TO BE in the AKC, because the AKC breeds foremost for looks, rather than brains or working-prowess, so dogs such as Catahoula’s, Blue Lacy’s, and Dogo Argentino’s, would have their breed’s usefulness as tracking dogs and hunting dogs dilluted if their breeders had to worry whether they were 24 or 25 inches tall, or whether they weighed 65 vs. 70 pounds, etc.
Which brings me to where I started…WHO DEFINES WHAT A “BREED” IS?…and WHAT is that definition?
Clearly the AKC doesn’t “define” what one is (for example my Duck Toller didn’t magically become a “breed” in 2003, it’s the same dog it was the night before). Yet on the flipside, some less reputable kennel clubs liberalize the definition of a “breed” to include dogs with no set specs, history, or unique DNA.
So I ask this question philosophically…what is a breed…and who or what do you feel has the right to define what strains of dog meet the requirement of a breed?
6 Comments
March 19th, 2010 at 11:31 pm
First of all, the AKC doesn’t “do” anything. They are a registry service, a club of clubs. They don’t “breed for looks”. Breeders do. There are hundreds of hunting and herding clubs in the AKC, members of whom value a dog’s working ability over its conformation. This is why we have the “bench and field” splits in a lot of sporting breeds.
To me a breed is defined by
- a stud book
- a standard
- a history
March 19th, 2010 at 11:53 pm
A rough definition of a breed is a dog (or any variety of an animal for that matter) that was selectively bred for particular qualities. usually those qualities make them better able to serve a purpose. A standard is developed, and breeders are able to follow a standard so that the dogs are predictable. Dogs not up to standard are not bred.
There will be some controversy, but I think that it is ridiculous to say a dog that came from crossing two different breeds is anything close to a breed. It takes many generations look for VERY specific qualities and that just isn’t happening with these “designer” breeds like Goldendoodles. There are grey areas, but these mixed breeds are deinitely not in those grey areas; they are flat out not anything close to a true breed.
The AKC is refusing a lot of “breeds” because they are NOT selectively bred. The Continental Kennel Club is JUNK- they register mixed breeds which will never be breeds unless they stop randomly breeding mutts and start looking for specific traits. They will accept any dog with pictures and some signatures. People have registered rabbits and stuffed animals with no questions asked. Do not trust them.
It is the AKCs job to maintain the pedigree through recordkeeping. It is the breeders job toto produce healthy dogs that will live happy lives. Following the standard and keeping the pedigree helps maintain that.
And some working dogs do have different standards in the AKC- it isn’t about being pretty but just setting something to maintain the bloodlines. Working dogs can still be raised and responsibly bred as long as they are mainting health and working ability- there just needs to be some objective way of looking at the breed to be sure that only good representations of the breed reproduce.
ADD: Before those purebreds were purebreds, yes there were mixes. HOWEVER those mixed breed dogs that started the breed are NOT what we see today!
Most of the “new breeds” we see today are actually jsut mixes of two or more real breeds without any reliable thought to what the puppies will be like or even to the percentage of the breeds or number of generations away from the last purebred parent! A Goldendoodle could come from a Poodle and Golden Reteriver, or it’s great grandparents could have been that pairing. They could look anything like a Poodle or Golden or anywhere in between, and there is no great movement to regulate it from my knowledge (all I have seen for a “standard” contradicted itself and said stupid things like “colors: beautiful colors”).
No matter how you pain it, all these new mixes are nothing like the orignial mixes that created the purebreds we know today!
March 20th, 2010 at 12:23 am
If you look at any type of dog they have all had that many different dogs used in the breeding process that all dogs could be classed in my opinion as Mutts.
The doberman for example used these breeds to make it:
Rottie – Weirmeiner – Great Dane – Pinsher ( very aggressive dog of it’s day but very ugly dog ) etc.
I understand the point you are making but to be honest who has the right to say one breed of dog is right and another wrong. I own an Aktia purebreed but they were crossed in America with German Shepherds after the war. In Japan they have an Akita which is much smaller to the one’s bred in America. I also have a Dogue De Bordeaux x Rottie. Truthully though what makes a purebreed? all dogs were crossed at some point making them all MUTTS.
March 20th, 2010 at 12:26 am
I think you make a huge mistake in thinking that registries have anything to do with defining breeds.
You’re also making a huge mistake in thinking that the AKC somehow determines which breeds are “legitimate”, and automatically accepts them.
You need to get a handle on what the AKC IS and ISN’T. It IS a registry. It will register purebred dogs that it recognizes. You can’t make claims about lax DNA verification, when the system only came into practice in the last decade, in order to clean up record keeping among high volume breeders.
The AKC registers dogs. It holds events for registered dogs. It keeps records on registered dogs so that breed clubs don’t have to. That’s pretty much it.
What the AKC ISN’T is GOD. It doesn’t lean down from on-high and give recognition to those breeds it deems worthy — the breed fanciers have to apply for recognition. They have to WANT IN. That is why the Toller existed for years prior to AKC recognition…it took a group of Toller fanciers to form a US Parent Club, submit records and a Breed Standard, and get AKC recognition.
You wrote: “the AKC breeds foremost for looks, rather than brains or working-prowess…”
The AKC doesn’t “breed” for anything. It is up to the breeders — the stewards of the breed — to maintain workability in their dogs. If the Lacy/Dogo/Catahoula people think that their ranks are so weak-willed that they would allow their breeds to be diluted, so be it.
Whether or not a breed is destroyed is UP TO ITS BREEDERS, NOT THE PEOPLE WHO KEEP THE RECORDS.
The ConKC and the other crap registries have lax requirements because they are only interested in money. They are for-profit, and more different “breeds” = more registration applications = more money. Pretty simple.
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Now…getting to your question. It’s a pretty simple matter of genetics. Dogs of the same breed, when bred together, produce type and structure consistent with their breed.
Witters — for the record, not every purebred dog is the result of a mix. And, yes, Dobermans (for example) were developed using a number of different dogs, but when you breed a Doberman to a Doberman, the resulting litter does not produce German Pinschers, Weimaraners, Rotties, and Dobermans. It does not produce the breeds used in early development — it only produces Dobermans, the true breeding descendant.
When dogs of a similar type and structure breed true — when they reproduce themselves consistently — they are a distinct breed.
So who has the right to define a breed? I would say the people who developed it, and the scientific data that they’ve collected to support it in the form of stud book entries, pedigrees, measurements, and DNA samples with similar genetic markers for traits that identify the dogs as members of the same “tribe”.
It’s not a philosophical question. It’s a biological question.
My breed was developed by Siberian natives, who lived in isolation. They didn’t have 4 different established breeds to work with. They had dogs shaped by their need and their environment. They didn’t care about looks, but they created a purebred anyway, a dog based on function, which was uniform in type and structure because that type/structure happened to be the best equipped form in order to survive.
A larger dog would have required too much food. A smaller dog could not have handled the weight. The non-standard dogs were culled as useless, and the standard dogs were kept and bred because they excelled at the job. These dogs were of a standard type, and produced a standard type. Voila. A breed was born.
Magically — Amazingly — Astoundingly — the AKC had nothing to do with it. Nature, genetics, and selective breeding did.
We identify these dogs as a breed because, when bred to each other, they produce themselves.
March 20th, 2010 at 12:48 am
NO,AKC does NOT nor ever HAS “added breeds by popularity contest”.The PARENT CLUBS petition for status,they show their proof of pure-breeding that’s gone on for decades-ALL DOCUMENTED-proof that there is an available viable PURE population to sustain the breed,etc.
AKC *may* grant “miscellaneous” status for a few years before full recognition.May NOT if there is not enough interest or population.
The BREEDERS set the standards & ADHERE to them.
If you don’t give a ratzazz if your BRED ON PURPOSE & FOR a purpose is too g-d BIG to do it’s job…why do you even bother to try?If a mutt can do it,use a mutt but don’t pretend it’s anything special OR that it’s offspring will be.
Know what????…the WORK ethic is NOT brushed out on the grooming table!!!!
I have top quality purebred AKC registered & TITLED dogs….conformation ,performance & IN THE FIELD!!
Know what else? I always those who boo-hoo over “fancy” dogs CAN’T compete…sour grapes????
CKC & NKC will register *ANYTHING*…NOT Pure NOT even DOGS!!!
March 20th, 2010 at 1:14 am
“What exactly, defines or legitamizes a “breed” as a “breed”?”
Dogs that when bred together breed “true” to a standard (for conformation, type, working ability, temperament).
What makes a breed legitimate- when a group of people agree that it is a breed, have worked to refine the standard, have opened/closed a stud book and can now say that all dogs descending from only those dogs registered, will breed true to the standard.
AKC has nothing to do with it. They are a mere registry service. Whether a breed becomes a part of AKC’s recognized breeds has to do with whether or not the people involved with the breed do what is necessary to become recognized. Don’t want AKC to recognize a breed…. make sure you don’t sell pups who are breedable to people who DO want the breed to be recognized.
Dogs ability to fulfill their original purpose has to do with the BREEDERS integrity (or lack of it) when selecting breeding stock. The advent of “Barbie” Collies (Border Collies) and “Giant White Pomeranians” (Samoyeds) has to do with breeders not being selective in their breeding stock. It has nothing to do with whether or not AKC “legitimized” a breed.
Edit: Gotta say- I love Loki’s description of natural selection creating her breed… with one of my breeds it was literally a case of only the best surviving and the rest being stock for the stew pot.