Hi there,

Sitting on the bus today my mind started wandering and settled on Belgian Shepherds. I realise that there are 4 types. What I would like to know is if say a Tervueren was crossed with a Malinois what kind of puppies would they be? Would it be like crossing a yellow and a black lab where you would still get the defined types, or would you get an in-betweeny say with Tervueren colouring but the Mal's short coat (or a Mal with a mane!)? What about crossing a Laekenois (sp?) with any of the others?

This has been bugging me all day!

Thanks.

When inter variety breeding was allowed the black and coloured long coats were allowed to be mated, and you would get both in a litter.

The coloured long coats could be mated to the short coats (malinois), but care would need to be taken they did not carry black, as black short coats would not meet the standard,a nd I don't think we got any.

The short coated were allowed to be mated to the rough.

The inheritance with the different coat types would be the same as in most breeds with short coat being dominant over long.  The short and rough would be the same inheritance as say in Russell's.

The rough coats out of Malinois breeding if I remember rightly lacked furnishings, so wasn't a mating favoured to produce Lakenois.

Sorry got interrupted as I typed my reply -see you did know there were Mal/Laek matings and the results! :) Didn't mean to appear to ignore what you said.

I was briefly in Belgians when the intervariety breeding was still allowed, before they turned them into one breed. 

My bitch was a Groennendael called Vanistica Star Attraction (Kyogi Du Domaine des Noirs ex Vanistica Christmas Angel) and was born 2/10/1988.

She did modestly well in the ring for the 2 1/2 years I showed her befroe my marriage breakdown.  Sadly she died young in 1992, when I decided o a less needy breed (single Parent with two pre school kids, of 14 months and 4 1/2).

She was intervariety bred as her mothers sire was a Tervuern Questenberg Nightcap, full brother to the well known Q. Masai, and they had a Malinois behind them.

oops honest I do know how to spell Groenendael.

Oh my god - Brainless - my parents first groenendael was  called Questenberg Urban Gorilla - he was an absolute beauty with a white star on his chest. I wonder how they would have been related...

Questenberg Masai are in my Mali pedigrees. :) He was mated to Sabrefield Here I Am (M) and produced one of the all time top winners; Sabrefield New Story.

Not surprisng as he went back to the Malinois Ben De Maugre (sp?)

As Barabra said it is not allowed these days, but it was done in the past. My Malinois (as most UK ones) have Tervuerens behind them. If you mate a pure Malinois to a Terv the Mali will not carry the longhair gene so all the pups will therefore be shortcoated = Malinois. If the Malinois however carried the longhair gene (in other words, if it had Tervs in the background) you could get both Malis and Tervs.

It still happens today that Tervuerens appear in Groenendael litters.

All the old Laekenois pedigrees I've seen (just looked quickly now) were pure Laekenois but I think Malinois were used at some point but can't swear to it.

In working strains of Malinois in the US where they mix and match for working ability only it is possible to see Black Malinois. Here, of course, only red, fawn and grey are accepted, same as in Tervueren.

Unfortunately the mode of inheritance re coat type and colour in the varieties of BSD is not fully understood even by established geneticists - hence why the "melting pot" that was AV BSD came and went and during which time many enthusiasts felt deflated and left the breeding / exhibiting side of their favoured variety.

In the long haired varieties, black to black matings quite frequently contain reds and greys and much less commonly, but nevertheless possible, are blacks born from red to red matings :)  The only certainties thus far established in the long haired varieties are that grey to grey will only produce grey.

In the past Malinois have been bred to both the Laekenois and Tervueren - specifically to increase the gene pool of the short and rough coated varieties.  As far as I'm aware coat quality however was often mixed, i.e. although the short coat would dominate, it was not always as close fitting or short as it should be :)  I have never seen a Laekenois x Malinois in the flesh, but would have thought that the gene pool for the rough coated variety would have benefited greatly from less furnishings as it is only in recent years that we have had Laekenois in this country which have not been profusely "fuzzy" (technical terminology :D )

Groenendael have never been permitted to be IV bred to either the short or rough haired varieties as these would produce blacks in the latter two and neither have that colour permitted as standard.

Selected inter variety matings (in the long haired at any rate) are still done abroad so, coupled with recessive genes in these varieties, we will IMO always have a genuine need for (the ever under threat) cross-registration of progeny to the variety they resemble rather than registered solely in accordance with the parental variety.

My first Tervueren was born of black parents - in fact if I remember correctly there were more Tervueren offspring than Groenendael in that litter.  Two others I've owned since have had Malinois in the first 5 generations of their pedigrees. 

A few litters of Tervueren x Tervueren both here and over seas have produced one black puppy among their progeny and I know of at least one entire black litter in the UK from two red parents ;)

As Marianne has pointed out, certain "working" lines of Malinois have peculiar colour / markings - blacks and brindles in the main :rolleyes: however these are almost certainly the result of the introduction of other breeds (often they are much bigger and heavier than standard too).

Whoops - turning into War & Peace :o :P

regards, Teri

We've got a working bred Mal at college and he's brindle, and has a huge broad head - lovely dog but not very "Belgian" at all

My lovely boy Freebie (Freebooter of Belamba) had Malinois fairly up close in his pedigree - a few generations back as I recall without checking :)

Lindsay
x

can't really add any more except to say that interestingly there have been several important Groenendael Champions born from Terv x Groen IV matings but I can't recall any Champion Tervs resulting from the same mix - perhaps because the colour requirements are more difficult to achieve with this genetic mix ?

I have had two 'Groen' litters which produced 2 greys in each litter - all 'steel' grey rather than fawn/grey with quite a heavy black overlay and a bit over masked - whilst one of the bitches does very well under all rounders she is not typy enough for breed specialists ( me included :D).

It will be very difficult for us once cross registration ends as almost all lines over here originate from the comtinent where IV matings regularly occur - my greys would have had to be registered as Groenendaels

Yvonne

This Mal might be what is called a Dutch Herder on the continent.  If a litter is mixed the fawn ones are called Malis and the brindle ones Dutch Herders! ;)

What I need is a mnemonic for my own satisfaction in remembering which variety is which type!! :-D