In our continued conversation with Astrid Hübner from Malinois Diversity she deepens her perspectives on preserving genetic diversity through outcrossing and addresses important topics such as the popular-sire syndrome, inbreeding coefficients, and genetic identification of dog breeds. Her insights provide further understanding of the complex challenges and strategies involved in dog breeding.

K9andSports: So, it's actually two things to consider. One is a mating that is very promising. But the other is not to narrow down the size of the gene pool.

Astrid: Exactly, it's good to have a variety of breeders with different breeding goals, as this leads to a broad genetic diversity.

K9andSports: Could you tell the readers something about the term "Popular Sire"?

Astrid: That's a male dog that has been used for breeding above average frequency. Overall, the popular sire syndrome can lead to a reduction in genetic diversity and health problems in future generations. It's important in breeding to pay attention to a balanced use of males to maintain the health and diversity of the population.

Taking this into consideration, the FCI recommends that no dog should have more offspring than 5% of the total number of puppies in its breeding population.

What numbers should be used to calculate this for the Malinois? Worldwide? In the country? In the club? – Personally, I would refer to the subpopulation (lines). Show – IPO – Ring: depending on the lines, different dogs become Popular Sires.

K9andSports: There's also a lot of talk about the inbreeding coefficient and the ancestor loss coefficient in this context. Can you explain these terms to me?

Astrid: The ancestor loss coefficient provides information about how many ancestors a dog could theoretically have and how many of them have been lost due to duplications in the pedigree.

The inbreeding coefficient indicates the likelihood that a dog will inherit two identical alleles from its ancestors. Inbreeding can have both positive and negative effects. Positively, it can help to fix certain traits within a breed. However, it also carries the risk of the dog inheriting a genetic defect. Therefore, it is recommended that the inbreeding coefficient does not exceed 5 percent. Up to 10 percent is still considered acceptable, but anything beyond that is problematic for both the population and the dog itself.

However, I no longer work with both coefficient based on pedigrees. To obtain a realistic inbreeding coefficient, it would have to be calculated over all generations. However, this is an extremely time-consuming task that even modern computers struggle with. On platforms like working-dog.com, it already takes a long time to calculate the inbreeding coefficient for eleven generations. To obtain a truly meaningful number, however, at least 30 to 50 generations would need to be traced back, which is extremely time-consuming.

K9andSports: So, how do I proceed in this case?

Astrid: I use genomic evaluations. These involve a marker profile similar to what is required for DNA analysis, but many more markers are evaluated.

Based on this information, a genomic inbreeding coefficient is calculated, which is more meaningful than traditional calculations based on the pedigree.

K9andSports: Inbreeding is a significant issue. How problematic is it specifically with the Malinois?

Astrid: The genomic inbreeding coefficient for Malinois is currently Feragen (Laboratory for Veterinary Genetic Diagnostics) at just under 6 percent, which is relatively good compared to other breeds. Ideally, however, it should be less than 5%.

K9andSports: What are the values ​​for other working dog breeds?

Astrid: For a boxer, for example, the IK is 23%, for a German shepherd it is just under 13%.

K9andSports: How do these values ​​develop over time within a closed breeding population?

Astrid: If the breeding books are closed, things can only go downhill because no new genes are added. The smaller the breeding base, the faster the level of inbreeding increases, even if the dogs are randomly mated without any deliberate inbreeding.

K9andSports: At first it may seem positive that only the breed itself is crossed within a breed association. If I understand it correctly, would it make more sense from a health perspective for the dogs to occasionally crossbreed with other breeds?

Astrid: Knowing that the level of inbreeding within a closed population inevitably increases, it makes sense to counteract this with cross-breeding. This is absolutely common in horse and livestock breeding.

Crossing two different breeds results in the offspring being heterozygous, meaning they carry different versions of the same gene. This leads to greater genetic diversity, which can have a positive impact on environmental adaptability and fitness. The higher the diversity or the lower the inbreeding, the less likely it is that two defect genes will meet.

However, you have to keep in mind that cross-breed diseases such as HD, ED, LÜW or DM can also occur in a mix of Malinois and DSH.

Good breeding management is required for such cross-breeding projects. Otherwise the positive effects will be lost after just a few generations. The topic is very complex, if you would like to know more about it you can visit our website Projektblog read up.

K9andSports: Could you go into more detail about the topic of register papers?

Astrid: You can register a dog without FCI papers, but one that is typical of the breed. To do this, you drive to an exhibition where the dog is examined and phenotyped by a judge. If the dog looks like a Belgian Shepherd Dog, for example, it will be entered in the register appendix of the studbook.

K9andSports: Couldn't the purebredness of a dog be determined genetically in advance?

Astrid: Genetically determining a dog's breed is a relatively new method. However, the breed standard does not contain any specification as to what the dog's genetics should be.

There is only one standard for the external appearance of a breed.

If you say that this breed determination test is the basis, many FCI Malis will drop out of breeding.

The Malinois often comes back partially as a Dutch Shepherd. I can't say whether this is because many KNPV dogs were crossed or whether the breeds are so closely related that they can't really be distinguished.

K9andSports: Can you give examples where crossing another breed has been successfully practiced?

Astrid: Examples of this include the retro pug (without brachycephalic respiratory distress syndrome) or the LUA Dalmatian (without hyperuricemia). But Malinois have always been cross-bred - although rarely officially. Dogs from KNPV, NVBK or Kennel Club have always found their way into FCI breeding. Since this mostly happened under false documents, it is very difficult to understand.