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Lakeland Terrier — BetterBred Breed Page – BetterBred.com
BetterBred Breed Profile

Lakeland Terrier

Temperament: Confident, bold, and lively. Lakelands are classic working terriers - small, scrappy, and self-possessed, with strong prey drive and a stubborn streak. They are affectionate with family but independent-minded, and need firm, consistent training.
Height: About 13.5-14.5 inches (34-37 cm)
Weight: 15-17 pounds (7-8 kg)
Life Span: 13-16 years
Outlier Index ?
0.32
Born before 2016: 0.34 Born after 2024: —
Avg Genetic Rel. ?
0.10
Born before 2016: 0.13 Born after 2024: —
Internal Relatedness ?
-0.08
Born before 2016: -0.19 Born after 2024: —
#NameGender OIAGRIR
1 Hollybriar Race The Wind F 0.38 0.03 -0.06
2 Hollybriar Whatever Lola Wants F 0.27 -0.02 0.26
3 Stanstead Hollybriar Spot'N F 0.23 0.17 -0.08
4 Hollybriar Southern Flame F 0.39 0.17 -0.25
5 Hollybriar Hard-Hearted Hannah F 0.31 0.11 -0.15
6 CH Hollybriar Sailor Take Warning SE M 0.32 0.12 -0.17
The Lakeland Terrier comes from the Lake District of northwest England, where farmers needed a working terrier tough enough to hunt foxes and vermin through the rocky hill country. The breed shares common ancestry with other Northern working terriers - Border, Fell, and Welsh types - and the working strain remains close to those roots. Recognition came later than for flashier terrier breeds, with the modern standard settling in the early 20th century. The Lakeland has always been a low-population breed, prized by a small community of enthusiasts rather than chased by popular trends, and that has kept the gene pool narrow but relatively stable.
Legg-Calve-Perthes disease and Von Willebrand disease occur in the breed and DNA tests are available for some forms. Patellar luxation, lens luxation, and cataracts are also reported. Like most terriers, Lakelands tend to be long-lived and generally healthy, but the small worldwide population means individual genetic problems can propagate quickly if not tracked.
VGL has reported Lakeland Terriers carrying an average of around 4.64 alleles across the 33 STR loci, with an effective allele count near 2.54. Those are genuinely narrow numbers and reflect the breed's long-standing small population. Every rare allele in the breed matters more than it would in a broader population, and preserving them should be a priority for breeders. VGL testing has found Lakeland Terriers with observed heterozygosity slightly above expected, giving a small negative inbreeding coefficient. That is a reasonably good signal and suggests breeders in the tested population are picking unrelated mates where they can. The caveat is that the pool they are drawing from is small to begin with.

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

A 3D genetic map of enrolled Lakeland Terrier 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
1012
66.7%
1040
16.7%
1052
8.3%
1104
8.3%

Class II Haplotypes

HaplotypeFrequency
2003
66.7%
2022
16.7%
2017
8.3%
2067
8.3%

Class I & II Combinations

Class IClass IIFrequency
1012 2003
66.7%
1040 2022
16.7%
1052 2067
8.3%
1104 2017
8.3%

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.

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Hollybriar
Virginia, US
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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.