Forgive me if this is a dumb question, but It looks like the dutch and the belgian shepherds look almost the same but for the coat colour.

Are they essentially the same dog or do they have different ancestry? If so can some one share that with me.

Also why is it that 95% of all personal protection dogs/crowd control dogs/ Police dogs seem to be GSDs and 95% of all biting sport dogs are Belgians. I am not counting schutzhund as biting sports.

What makes a GSD more suited for police work , while it seems that the Belgian and dutch are quicker and more eager to bite.

I tried googling difference between belgian and dutch shepherds and I got a few pages which said that the KNPV dogs are almost always FCI unregistered dogs because they constantly interbreed Dutch and Belgian and even GSD some times to get the best working dog. This will not be allowed if the dogs have to be FCI registered. It also said that a fawn dog may be called a Belgian and a Brindle may be called a Dutch. I also googled some malanois pictures and found the odd one had a black saddle and above the eye black line like the olden day Alsations (GSDs). GSDs used to be Medium sized medium built dogs with a curled up tail carried high above the back when I was a young boy. These dogs used top perform in travelling circuses and they were remarkably smaller than today's GSDs that almost have a mastiff like thickness to their features.



So is it true that true working line (not talking about FCI registered show dogs ) Belgians/Dutch/GSDs are bred with each other?

Here are two pictures of what were considered Alsatians In India in the early seventies. They were beautiful dogs with clean lines and nice straight backs. They were structurally very similar to the Belgians.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/paul_wheeler/2798840437/lightbox/


http://cdn.pedigreedatabase.com/userfiles/A%20Dog%20for%20Dos%20PD.jpg

I believe it's a German Shepherd. the English changed the name to Alsatian because of the world war.

This is what I meant when I said "tail carried up"

http://cdn.pedigreedatabase.com/userfiles/Old%20Photo%20of%20WD%20Trials.jpg

All of those photos are GSDs.

What you read is true. Many of the breeds are mixed and many (mostly the KNPV lines if I'm not mistaken) are labeled as a breed based on the color they come out. There are Belgian Malinois, and there are Belgian bred, Dutch bred, French bred (haha, like French bread...) Malinois. There are Dutch and French bred GSDs, though not nearly as common. The same goes for Dutch Shepherds. And yes, many of them are mixed breed dogs.

It depends what bloodlines you're looking at and what venue.

The big sellers and brokers for PPDs sell GSDs because that's what the public knows. A big GSD looks scarier than a little tan dog of a breed the buyer has never heard of. A lot of police and military work is with Malinois. I wouldn't say 95% of that is GSD.

ETA. Schutzhund is a biting sport.

 Quote: ramachandran subramanian

Forgive me if this is a dumb question, but It looks like the dutch and the belgian shepherds look almost the same but for the coat colour.

Are they essentially the same dog or do they have different ancestry? If so can some one share that with me.

If you are talking about the Dutch dogs, they are basically the same dog. 1 litter can have both fawn and brindle pups in it, and they will call the fawn pups Malinois, and the brindle pups Dutch Shepherds. Can't really get more same than that.

If you are talking about the Dutch "Malinois" vs say the French Malinois, there are differences.

 Quote: ramachandran subramanian

Also why is it that 95% of all personal protection dogs/crowd control dogs/ Police dogs seem to be GSDs and 95% of all biting sport dogs are Belgians. I am not counting schutzhund as biting sports.

95% of all crowd control/police dogs are not GSD. Even in Germany they use a lot of Malinois for police work, other countries are the same. Here in the US I know of some departments which have only GSD, some have only Malinois, and many use both breeds, plus some DS. Same with the military.

 Quote: ramachandran subramanian

So is it true that true working line (not talking about FCI registered show dogs ) Belgians/Dutch/GSDs are bred with each other?

In the Dutch/KNPV program they cross Malinois and DS a lot, and also occasionally throw in other breeds, GSD, Great Dane, etc. Whatever works, and will give them dogs with the size, power, drive, bite, stability, etc they are looking for.

In the FCI working dogs, no, they do not routinely mix the breeds.

Kadi nailed it. KNPV breeds for 'workability', not conformation/correctness to breed standard. (ha, what breed was it anyhow, with all the mixing)

Breeding the brindles (Dutch) and fawns (Malinois) together can get some folks pretty spun up. In reality, I'm not sure what it matters. They both make amazing dogs. Close to the same standard, and they both did originate from the same stock, back to your original question Ram.

Ya want me (and Kadi, I'm sure she knows the nitty gritty details too!) to go into the recessive/dominant traits of coat color in Mals/Dutchies? It gets really complicated, really quick. Throw in the black Mal/Dutch, or even the blues, and it's a mess.

Tail carriage... Some dogs have a 'gay' tail, and others don't. Some lines have more upright carriage then others. (Kadi, I just saw a video of one of your pups on a BH routine, do many of your dogs have happy/high/gay tail? I love it. ) Koenig has a VERY 'gay' tail. Sometimes it gets close to Husky style curve in it. Pretty extreme, and it would be faulted in the conformation ring, (FCI).

As I saw conformation ring, and tag it right away with FCI dogs, I want to say that MANY FCI dogs can work in bite sports, and PPD/Police K-9 work. So a true working line Dutch can be a FCI registered dog. (Vrijheid's Aaron, for example!)

i thought Dutch Shepherd was a breed of their own?

It is.


Yet... it's not. It's a breed, with it's own registry. BUT, the Dutch Shepherd and the Belgian Malinois originated from the same stock. As close cousins, essentially, some people choose to mix the two. A purebred Dutch Shepherd is exactly that. A purebred Belgian Malinois is a Malinois. Mix the two, and you can possibly get a litter that is 50/50 in coloring, half brindle, half fawn. Call the brindles Dutchies, call the fawns Malinois.

Confused yet?

But yes, the Dutch Shepherd is a breed. Loyalty, Commitment, and Guts...if you dare to own a Dutch.

Kelly i agree, i hope that they don't become over bred like some of the other breeds. my favorite dog in k9 was my Dutch shepherd.