Genetics

“Conditioned to perform under stress.”

- USA Today

The genetic composition a working dog possesses are critically important. It is key to understand that, unlike a pet dog you might get, a working dog has so many more factors to consider beyond just simple temperament, looks and personality.

Over the past few years we have sourced dogs from different breeders in an effort to see and understand the landscape of genetic composition that exists particularly relative to German and Dutch Shepherds. This is a difficult and risky undertaking.

With German Shepherds, choosing the right lines is much easier and the focus becomes really simply choosing the correct individual Dog.

With Dutch Shepherds, the undertaking is much more complex. The gene pool is small. The breed is considered an exotic breed. The Dogs can have very different genetic makeups and expressions. They can also look very different.

Broadly speaking, there are 2 different lines of Dutch Shepherds. The first is the KNPV (Koninklijke Nederlandse Politiehond Vereniging which is the Royal Dutch Police Dog Association) line and the second is the FCI (Fédération Cynologique Internationale) line. There will also be some KNPV line Dogs that will fit into the FCI fold as they will pass conformation for FCI.

KNPV lines are built and bred in Holland historically for the police force and have been developed over a century for this purpose. They are intended strictly for police and military work, are freely outcrossed to other breeds to achieve whatever characteristics deemed needed (size, power, drive, strength, speed, disposition) for their mission. They are not intended to go into the hands of the public as pets or into Dog Sports. They are intended to be full-throttle, for the streets day-to-day and be able to take a beating while on-duty and keep fighting while doing so.

FCI Dutch Shepherds are pedigreed and are considered pure-bred. They are more expensive to purchase and are often intended for Dog Sports like French Ring, Mondio Ring and IGP for example, or simply for beauty.

There are KNPV Dutch Shepherds that are family-compatible however, and there are many FCI Dutch Shepherds that have the nerve and character to serve as military and/or police dogs.

At AlpinHaus, we have looked for high-performance family-compatible FCI Dutch Shepherds to work with. These will come from Sport lines, typically French Ring, and within this context we look for the Defense Drive necessary to do real Protection work. There are several Breeders here in Europe that create Dogs that fit this description in general, so then it becomes a matter of getting puppies from the different Breeders and seeing how they work out.