Aksaray Shepherd Dog

The Aksaray Shepherd Dog is a large, molossoid (mastiff-type) livestock guardian raised chiefly on the steppe-plateau of Aksaray Province in central Anatolia, Turkey. In Turkish veterinary and cynological literature the studied animal is the Aksaray Malaklısı (also written Malaklı Karabaş, "droopy-lipped black-head"); "Aksaray Shepherd Dog" is a loose English-language label for the same population. It is best described as a regional working landrace and emerging breed candidate — distinct in body form from the neighbouring Kangal, Akbash and Kars dogs, yet part of the shared Anatolian guardian ecosystem. It guards sheep and mixed livestock against wolf, jackal and fox, and is increasingly kept as an estate and property guard. The breed is not recognised by the FCI and has no closed studbook; national breed-registration procedures were only begun in 2025.

I History & origins Documented

The Aksaray Malaklısı has a short documented record. No archival, Ottoman, or pre-20th-century source names the type; it belongs to the broad Anatolian large-guardian population tied to a pastoral tradition reaching back millennia in central Anatolia, but no specific historical line to this particular type has been established. The earliest identified writing on the breed is a 2011 Turkish brochure, and the first formal peer-reviewed study — a survey of 277 dogs sampled across Aksaray and adjacent provinces between 2009 and 2012 — appeared in 2014.¹ Formal breed-building is recent: the Aksaray Governorate secured a service trademark for the name in 2017, and a Turkish agricultural-research institute opened national registration procedures in 2025.

II Physical & conformation

Recorded coat is Short; boz w/ dark mask. A full physical profile — coat structure and care, climate tolerance, skeletal conformation and sexual dimorphism — is not yet collected for this breed.

III Working role Documented

The breed's core documented job is livestock and flock guarding (çoban köpeği) in Aksaray and neighbouring provinces, protecting sheep and mixed stock from wolf, jackal and fox by size, presence and a bold guarding temperament. Working placement is confirmed: a 2022 hearing-screening study sampled Malaklı dogs kept as flock-protection dogs (sürü koruma köpekleri) on farms in Sivas Province,⁸ and an ethnographic survey of 50 Aksaray breeders and owners documented the breed within local pastoral folk culture.¹⁰ Alongside flock work, the breeders' association describes growing use as a guard for homes, estates and factories. Two limits run through the evidence: most working documentation rests on breeder and owner testimony or on shelter- and university-held animals rather than independent observation of dogs at work,¹ and no study places the breed in traditional highland transhumance — Aksaray is flat-to-rolling steppe grazed from fixed villages, not high-altitude summer pasture.

IV Behavioral profile Qualitative

Formal behavioural research on the Aksaray Malaklısı is essentially absent — there are no controlled temperament, flock-bonding or working-efficacy studies. The assessments below are qualitative, drawn from breeder and owner testimony and from field notes made while researchers collected morphometric samples; during that sampling some dogs were noted as too aggressive toward people to measure without muzzles, and higher inter-dog aggression than the Kangal was recorded.¹ Traits without a documented assessment are shown as gaps rather than guessed.

V Health Peer-reviewed

Health research on the Aksaray Malaklısı is recent and still narrow, but several peer-reviewed veterinary studies now exist:

• Keratoconjunctivitis sicca (dry eye) was examined in the breed's first ophthalmology study (50 dogs); dogs with third-eyelid-gland prolapse ("cherry eye") were found predisposed to mild-to-moderate dry eye — a manageable but chronic condition.⁷
• Congenital deafness appears uncommon: BAER hearing testing of 36 farm dogs found 2 with unilateral (one-sided) deafness and no bilateral deafness.⁸
• Baseline serum-biochemistry reference ranges have been established for the breed (20 dogs), aiding routine veterinary care.⁹
• Morphometric work flags a tendency toward brachycephalic (shortened) skull proportions in some males, which the authors note may carry breathing-related health concerns and is a consideration for any future breed standard.²

Major gaps remain. There is no breed-specific study of hip or elbow dysplasia — a notable omission for a heavy molossoid — and no published data on cardiac or thyroid disease, female reproductive health, working-injury rates, or lifespan.

VI DNA & origin research Peer-reviewed

Genetic work on the breed is limited but direct. The most comprehensive study analysed 17 microsatellite loci and mitochondrial DNA in around 200 dogs, finding high heterozygosity and very low genetic differentiation between regional subpopulations — a signature of a genetically coherent, continuous Central Anatolian population with substantial gene flow rather than a tightly inbred one.¹ Its mitochondrial lineages are dominated by two haplogroups shared broadly across Eurasian dogs, so they do not serve as unique breed markers. A later genome-wide (SNP-array) study exists but examined male reproductive traits rather than population structure.⁵ The key gap is that no genome-wide study compares the Aksaray Malaklısı with the Kangal, Akbash or Kars dogs: its morphometric distinctness from the Kangal is established, but its genetic distinctness from neighbouring Turkish guardians is not.

VII Related & compared breeds Documented

The Aksaray Malaklısı is most often compared with — and frequently confused with — other Central Anatolian guardians. Morphometric studies separate it from the Kangal by its larger overall size, elongated rectangular body format and heavier, more pendulous lips,¹³ and craniometric work reports statistically distinct skull indices from other breeds.⁶ It is not registered under the FCI Anatolian Shepherd Dog standard, and its boundary with the separately promoted "Turkish Boz Shepherd" is unresolved in the literature.

VIII Conservation & status Documented

The breed carries no formal conservation classification. Searches returned no FAO/DAD-IS listing and no published population census or demographic study; population size and distribution across Aksaray Province are undocumented.

IX Setting the record straight