Breed Page

Havanese — BetterBred Breed Page – BetterBred.com
BetterBred Breed Profile

Havanese

Temperament: Intelligent, playful, and genuinely social. Havanese are small companion dogs with outsized personalities - happy, people-oriented, and comfortable in a range of households. They are good with children and other dogs, trainable, and do well in urban settings given daily engagement and exercise.
Height: 8.5-11.5 inches (22-29 cm)
Weight: 7-13 pounds (3-6 kg)
Life Span: 13-16 years
Outlier Index ?
0.32
Born before 2016: 0.33 Born after 2024: 0.28
Avg Genetic Rel. ?
0.00
Born before 2016: 0.00 Born after 2024: 0.02
Internal Relatedness ?
0.02
Born before 2016: 0.03 Born after 2024: 0.03
Havanese
#NameGender OIAGRIR
1 GCH Lil Scamps Honor Man Of The House M 0.44 -0.03 -0.14
2 CH Kolmar's True North at Twinkle and Amistosa M 0.23 0.03 -0.02
3 GCH Amistosa's Coco Mademoiselle F 0.32 0.02 -0.09
4 CAN CH Adimar's Born to be Wild at Amistosa and Twinkle M 0.19 0.04 0.19
5 CH Twinkle's All That Glitters F 0.28 -0.01 0.06
6 CH Carneys Top Gun Maverick M 0.31 0.07 -0.15
7 Habana Lovestory's More Than Luck F 0.39 -0.02 0.00
8 Windsong F 0.42 -0.06 0.07
9 Smokey F 0.25 0.04 0.12
10 Happy Paws' Chocolate Covered Retirement Fun(d) F 0.36 -0.03 0.11
The Havanese descends from the now-extinct Blanquito de la Habana (little white dog of Havana), which itself came from the also-extinct Spanish Bichon Tenerife. The Blanquito was crossed with other Bichon-type breeds and with Poodles to produce the modern Havanese. After decades as a rare breed concentrated in Cuba and then a small group of Cuban expatriates in the United States, the breed has rebuilt into a popular international companion dog. The AKC recognized the Havanese in 1996. The breed comes in a wide range of colors.
Havanese are a comparatively healthy breed, but they share some issues common to small dogs: patellar luxation, Legg-Calve-Perthes disease, and portosystemic (liver) shunts occur, though not at high frequency. Progressive retinal atrophy and cataracts have also been reported. Maintaining overall diversity helps keep these issues from becoming more common.
VGL has reported Havanese carrying an average of around 9.52 alleles across the 33 STR loci, with an effective allele count near 4.48. Those are among the stronger numbers VGL has reported for any breed - a legitimately good position for a breed that came through such a tight 20th-century bottleneck. The gap between average and effective alleles still leaves room for breeders to redistribute rarer alleles by selecting less related mates. VGL testing has found Havanese with observed heterozygosity slightly below expected, giving a small positive inbreeding coefficient. The breed-wide mean IR comes in around 0.03, indicating mild overall inbreeding but well within workable range. Breeders are doing a generally good job of producing heterozygous puppies and maintaining the genetics inherited from the breed's diverse founder base.

Average metrics by birth year for dogs with recorded birthdates in the BetterBred database.

A 3D genetic map of enrolled Havanese dogs in the BetterBred database, based on allele-sharing distance across 33 STR loci. This is not a complete picture of the breed — it reflects only dogs whose owners have enrolled them. Drag to rotate · scroll to zoom · hover for dog names (public profiles only).

Historical founders — oldest 25% of enrolled dogs     Current gene pool — most recent 50% of enrolled dogs
Building plot… this may take a minute for larger breeds.

The Dog Leukocyte Antigen (DLA) region controls immune function and is the most polymorphic portion of the canine genome. Every dog carries two sets of DLA haplotypes — one from each parent — which almost never recombine across generations. Frequency percentages reflect how often each haplotype appears across all allele copies in the breed, not the percentage of dogs carrying it.

Class I Haplotypes

HaplotypeFrequency
1016
18.6%
1054
12.2%
1116
11.6%
1115
8.9%
1092
8.2%
1006
5.7%
1117
4.5%
1003
3.8%
1029
3.0%
1014
2.7%
1125
2.6%
1133
2.4%
1114
1.9%
1093
1.6%
1052
1.5%
1012
1.2%
1068
1.2%
1040
1.1%
1018
1.1%
1154
1.0%
1035
0.7%
1142
0.6%
1121
0.5%
1087
0.4%
1148
0.3%
1140
0.3%
1173
0.3%
1084
0.2%
1111
0.2%
1120
0.2%
1266
0.2%
0
0.2%
1132
0.2%
1128
0.2%
1124
0.2%
1127
0.1%
1129
0.1%
1123
0.1%
1030
0.1%
1017
0.1%
1147
0.1%
1122
0.1%
1011
0.1%
1009
0.1%
1118
0.1%
1290
0.1%

Class II Haplotypes

HaplotypeFrequency
2003
19.8%
2066
15.9%
2070
11.7%
2022
11.6%
2007
5.8%
2074
4.6%
2001
4.4%
2075
3.0%
2016
3.0%
2037
2.7%
2077
2.6%
2018
2.2%
2053
2.2%
2032
2.2%
2072
1.9%
2017
1.5%
2073
0.9%
2082
0.6%
2071
0.5%
2014
0.5%
2021
0.4%
2024
0.4%
2012
0.3%
2040
0.3%
2028
0.2%
2076
0.2%
2079
0.2%
0
0.2%
2035
0.1%
2033
0.1%
2023
0.1%
2011
0.1%
2008
0.1%
2006
0.1%
2005
0.1%
2083
0.1%

Class I & II Combinations

Class IClass IIFrequency
1016 2066
15.8%
1116 2070
11.6%
1054 2022
11.2%
1115 2003
8.8%
1092 2003
7.5%
1006 2007
5.7%
1117 2074
4.5%
1003 2001
3.8%
1029 2075
3.0%
1014 2037
2.7%
1125 2016
2.6%
1133 2077
2.5%
1016 2018
2.2%
1114 2072
1.9%
1093 2032
1.6%
1052 2017
1.6%
1012 2003
1.2%
1068 2053
1.2%
1018 2003
1.1%
1154 2003
1.0%
1040 2053
0.9%
1054 2073
0.9%
1035 2082
0.6%
1092 2001
0.6%
1142 2032
0.6%
1016 2014
0.5%
1121 2071
0.5%
1087 2021
0.4%
1140 2016
0.3%
1173 2040
0.3%
1148 2012
0.3%
1111 2024
0.2%
1084 2022
0.2%
1120 2024
0.2%
1266 2003
0.2%
1124 2076
0.2%
1040 2028
0.2%
1128 2079
0.2%
1132 2016
0.1%
1290 2053
0.1%
1009 2008
0.1%
1011 2011
0.1%
1016 2083
0.1%
1147 2007
0.1%
1017 2005
0.1%
1030 2023
0.1%
1035 2022
0.1%
1132 2033
0.1%
1115 2070
0.1%
1129 2035
0.1%
1127 2077
0.1%
1123 2006
0.1%
1122 2077
0.1%
1118 2074
0.1%

The Canine Diversity Test from UC Davis Veterinary Genetics Laboratory is the foundation of BetterBred’s breed management tools. Testing your dog adds to the breed database and gives you access to the full suite of breeding analysis tools.

Order from UC Davis VGL →
Amistosa Havanese
Ontario, CA
Visit Website →
Sonrisas Havanese
Ontario, CA
Visit Website →
Havasmallpaw
Alberta, Canada
Rosalba
Montana, United States
Visit Website →
Selah Havanese
Michigan, US
Visit Website →

BetterBred does not personally endorse or recommend any listed kennel. Visitors are responsible for conducting their own research, including verifying health testing records and speaking directly with breeders. List your kennel →

OI
Outlier Index

The Outlier Index (OI) measures how unusual a dog’s allele combination is relative to the tested population of its breed. A higher OI means the dog carries alleles at lower frequencies across the breed — genetic variants that are underrepresented in the population as a whole.

Dogs with high OI are genetically valuable because they carry diversity that most other tested dogs don’t share. Breeding them thoughtfully into the broader population helps redistribute lower-frequency alleles rather than allowing them to become even rarer over generations.

The breed average shown here reflects all dogs tested in the BetterBred database. The senior and youngster comparisons show whether diversity is trending up or down in recent generations.
AGR
Average Genetic Relatedness

Average Genetic Relatedness (AGR) measures how similar a dog’s DNA is, on average, to every other tested dog in the breed. It reflects the dog’s mean kinship — how closely related it is to the population as a whole.

A lower AGR means the dog is more genetically distinct from the majority of the breed. Dogs with low AGR carry alleles at lower frequencies across the tested population, making them higher-priority candidates for inclusion in a well-managed breeding program.

AGR is conceptually related to mean kinship used in conservation genetics for managed species populations. A declining AGR average in younger dogs suggests the breed is successfully redistributing genetic diversity across generations.
IR
Internal Relatedness

Internal Relatedness (IR) measures how much identical genetic material an individual dog inherited from both parents. IR is a useful indicator of inbreeding: lower IR generally reflects lower inbreeding, and it is widely used and reported in the scientific literature.

A high IR is not the cause for alarm it might appear. Elevated IR can often be resolved in a single generation by pairing with a dog whose ancestry is less represented in the breed. It is a signpost, not a sentence.

BetterBred reports IR for reference, but it is not our primary breeding guidance tool. OI and AGR together give a more complete and actionable picture of a dog’s genetic value to the population.

AGR tells you which dogs are genetically unusual relative to the population. OI tells you which dogs are most valuable to preserve. OI specifically weights mid-frequency alleles, identifying dogs whose ancestry is underrepresented in a way most likely to benefit the breed.