Comparison various body measurements of Aksaray Malakli and Kangal Dogs

Abstract

This study was conducted to compare and evaluate some body measurements of Kangal Dog and Aksaray Malakli Dog breeds. The study group consist of dogs with an age range from 2 to 5 years. Samples for Kangal dogs were obtained from Sivas and for Aksaray Malakli dogs from Aksaray province. Observations from ten dogs from both species (5 male and 5 female), in total 20 adult dogs were used for this study. Some of the morphological characteristics as black mask around the head, cream fur colour and holding spiral tail were found evident for Kangal dogs while in all Aksaray Malakli dogs the head and body size, thimbleful black mask around the head, and 6 th nail existence were determined as descriptive differences between the genotypes. While the effect of gender on muzzle length, body index and bone index was not found to be significant, it was found significant for other body measurements. The rump lengths in male Aksaray Malakli dogs were significantly larger than male Kangal dogs (P<0.001). However, this trait was not significant for female dogs. This can be associated with the significant interaction between breed and gender (P<0.01). Body index also showed the same trend. Also, withers height and head circumference traits were found significant (P<0.001) for male and female Aksaray Malakli dogs and for male and female Kangal dogs (P<0.01). This can be a reason for the significant interaction between breed and gender. As a conclusion, although there are some phenotypic similarities between Kangal and Aksaray Malakli dogs, obtained body measurements showed significant differences. Furthermore, Aksaray Malakli dogs tend to have bigger body structure than Kangal dogs.

Morphometric Characterization of the Akbaş (Akbash) Turkish Shepherd Dog

“…When the measured values in this research were evaluated, the Akbash dogs seemed to have significantly smaller body size compared to the other Turkish shepherd dogs: Kangal and Aksaray Malaklı (Oğrak et al, 2018;Urošević et al, 2012b) In this study, body length was found to be 10% greater than height at the withers, while Atasoy et al (2011) reported that these two variables were similar in the same breed. While the means of the height at withers and chest width in the current study were in accordance with Atasoy et al (2011), the means of the body length and chest depth were high and the means of the chest circumference and muzzle length were low.…”

“…Turkey has only one breed of dog that is internationally recognized (FCI: Fédération Cynologique Internationale). The Kangal shepherd dog has been accepted by the FCI as a separate breed since June 2018 (Oğrak et al, 2018). All shepherd dogs in Anatolia, and there are several breeds and varieties there, can be referred to as shepherd dogs of Anatolia.…”

“…The results obtained so far have been in accordance with values prescribed by the standard for this Turkish autochthonous breed. Oğrak et al (2018), who investigated Malaklı dog (one of the other Turkish shepherd dogs), reported the average height at withers as 80.75 cm, rump height as 78.5 cm, body length as 99.6 cm, head length as 35.2 cm and muzzle length as 15.4 cm.…”

Macroanatomical and morphometric study on the skull bones of Aksaray Malakli dogs

“…The skull is an important anatomical structure to discern dog breeds and wolves from dogs, plus add refs on wolves. In the skull literature studies, the Carnivors [1,9,11,12,28], Kangal and Malakli dogs [10,17,21], Tarsus Çatalburun dog [18], German wolf dog [19,20], Gray wolf [14]. It has been found that there are many studies on skull morphology and morphometry in Lynx [7], Red fox [22], Vulpes [25] and Golgen jackal [15].…”

Phenotype variability and basic morphological characteristics of the Aksaray Malakli dog population in Turkey

“…These are guard dogs, strong, with courageous and aggressive characteristics (Kocakaya and Atasoy, 2019). Aksaray Malakli dogs have large body size and weight, large body and head, droopy eyelids, cheeks and lips, large ears, short hair and uncurled tail (Atasoy et al, 2014;Oğrak et al, 2018). Coat colour is usually grey on the body xx and black and yellow on the head (Büyükleblebici, 2019).…”