Odis

The most dependable account of where the breed came from is not club lore but the standard’s own “Brief history of the breed” section. It says: at the end of the 1970s, in Odesa (Ukraine), on the initiative of FCI-UKU judge Tamara Sharhorodska, planned matings — in particular among the breeds Fox Terrier, silver Miniature Poodle and Maltese — produced a breed group of individuals with common ancestors and a shared phenotype. Years of breeding work followed, and in 2004 that group received the name ODIS along with its first breed standard.

One detail in that passage disappears from most summaries: the Poodle is not just “miniature” there, it is silver in color. That is no ornament — picking a single color line explains where the gray and “blue” tones the standard later admitted came from. The Fox Terrier, similarly, is named with no variety attached, while reference descriptions usually mean the wire-haired one, the source of the guard-hair texture the standard demands today.

By the club’s account the turning point is 1999: the bitch KROHA LAPUSHKA DIO PRESENT and the dog ZIGFRID produced a litter whose puppies all matched the type the breeders were after, and the bitch FRANSHIKA DIO PRESENT became the reference specimen and foundation dam. The chain reaches the present day: that bitch’s owner is named as Iryna Bakharieva, and Bakharieva Iryna Volodymyrivna appears as president of the ODIS National Breed Club on the official UKU page. The breed traces back to one specific bitch from one specific litter, and the person who stood beside that litter still answers for it inside the UKU system.

Building “the ideal city dog out of parts” is not an unusual idea — the people behind the Labradoodle thought along the same lines. After that the two roads part sharply. In most countries the Labradoodle stays a first- or second-generation hybrid with no standard of its own and no closed stud book: every litter is another cross between two other breeds. The Odis is past that stage — it has a standard text with tolerances in centimeters, lists of faults and serious faults, disqualifying points, a single-breed club and pedigrees on the form the UKU established.

The paper trail runs as follows, and every date carries a different meaning:

This is the most important point about the Odis and the one most often twisted, so take it from the documents.

The UKU is Ukraine’s national canine organization and operates inside the system of the FCI (Fédération Cynologique Internationale); the standard calls Tamara Sharhorodska an “FCI-UKU judge.” The UKU website runs two separate sections, “List of FCI breeds” and “National standards,” and the Odis belongs to the second. That page is titled, word for word, “NATIONAL BREED OF UKRAINE — ODIS,” and lists contacts for the National Breed Club.

In the UKU summary table “Breeds recognized at national level in Ukraine” the Odis row could hardly be more concrete: group — 0, standard number — 0, country — Ukraine, status — “Nationally recognized breed / WITHOUT CACIB.” Three zeros and one “without” carry the entire truth about where the breed stands internationally:

• Group 0 — the breed falls into none of the ten FCI groups. Inside the FCI it is simply unclassified.
• Standard number 0 — it holds no FCI standard number, the kind recognized breeds carry.
• WITHOUT CACIB — at shows the Odis does not compete for the CACIB, the certificate that leads to the title of International Beauty Champion in the FCI system.

What does work in full: the UKU pedigree, breeding records, breeding certificates, and a national show system with its own titles and judges cleared to evaluate the breed against its standard. For a dog born outside Ukraine the UKU Breeding Regulations lay out a separate path — registration of imported dogs of breeds recognized only at national level, with a UKU.R number and entry in the Appendix to the Stud Book.

Another detail keeps the word “national” from being overread. In that same UKU table, “Ukraine” also appears beside the Ukrainian Carpathian Hound and the Khortaya (the latter of shared origin). “Breed recognized at national level” is a status, not an exclusivity: it means what the table says, and nothing else.

Who granted the status matters too: a voluntary association did, not the state — and it could not have gone otherwise. Article 4 of the Ukrainian law “On Pedigree Breeding in Animal Husbandry” lists the objects of pedigree breeding exhaustively: cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, horses, poultry, fish, bees, silkworms, fur-bearing animals and rabbits. Dogs are absent, so Ukraine has no state register of dog breeds at all. “National breed” in the title of the UKU page is a canine organization’s wording inside its own system, and it should be read that way.

A further rule from the same table explains how the breed gets judged in the ring. Under UKU Order No. 14 of June 15, 2020, nationally recognized Ukrainian breeds provisionally assigned to FCI groups are added automatically to the breeds of the full group a judge holds. So there is no separate “caste of judges” for the Odis: an expert with the corresponding group evaluates it, simply with no CACIB on offer.

Is anything shifting on the FCI side? The latest document is dated June 23, 2026: UKU Order No. 33 created, under the organization’s president, a Working Group on preserving, developing and promoting Ukrainian national dog breeds. Its assignments explicitly include proposals for developing, clarifying and updating the standards of Ukrainian national breeds, and preparing the materials required to present Ukrainian national breeds to the Fédération Cynologique Internationale. Iryna Bakharieva, president of the ODIS National Breed Club, is on it. That is where the file actually stands: not a recognition already running, but a working group created and told to assemble the paperwork.

Is that bad for the dog? No. FCI recognition depends on time, population size, geographic spread and documented generations, not on any individual animal’s quality. For a buyer, though, the status carries practical weight: a narrower circle of breeding partners than in recognized breeds; no international career in the FCI system; and quality guarantees resting on the breeder and the single-breed club rather than on international rules.

The standard opens with a comparison you would not expect in a companion breed: the Odis “bears an outward resemblance to the South Russian Shepherd Dog, but is considerably smaller in size.” That same shepherd is known in Ukraine as the Ukrainian Shepherd. The document then calls for strong bone and constitution despite the small size — while warning that this is no license to make the dog clumsy, overloaded or coarse, and that the Odis is “on no account leggy or squat.”

Proportions are not left to the eye; they are given as numbers, and the numbers are what make the silhouette recognizable.

Two rows repay attention. First, male and female heights are different, and rolling them into one interval is wrong: 37 ± 2 and 35 ± 2 are separate corridors. Second, the standard carries no weight figure at all. That is neither an oversight nor sloppiness: the document builds the breed on height at the withers and proportions, letting mass follow from the constitution. Any “it should weigh this much” about the Odis is somebody’s estimate, not a breed requirement.

The standard polices the height limits strictly, and asymmetrically. Among the faults: height over 39 cm in males and females alike, and under 30 cm in females. Among the serious faults, the harsher tier: under 30 cm in a male, or over 41 cm in either sex. The upper limit is shared while the lower one is written separately — a very small female stays in fault territory where an equally small male already crosses into a serious fault.

The head, per the standard, reads as a blunt wedge from above and from the side; the distance from the occipital protuberance to the stop roughly equals the distance from the stop to the tip of the nose. The skull is slightly convex, moderately broad, narrowing gradually toward the eyes; the stop is soft, an abrupt stop counting as a fault. Eyes are medium, oval, dark, set slightly obliquely, with well-pigmented eyelid rims; overly protruding, pale eyes are a fault. Ears are drop ears, set high, medium, triangular, hanging close to the cheek; erect ears are a serious fault, short ears or ears carried back only a fault.

Pigment gets detailed treatment, since it shows all the more on a mostly white dog. The nose leather is broad with well-defined nostrils; black in white dogs, in white dogs with gray patches and in gray dogs, and it may be dark brown in fawn dogs. A nose pigmented over half its surface or more is a fault; under half, a serious fault; a fully unpigmented nose, grounds for disqualification. The bite is a scissor bite, with a level bite allowed in adults; an overshot jaw and a wry jaw disqualify.

The tail hangs low at rest and may lift above the line of the back when the dog is excited, its length reaching the hock. A tail thrown over the back, curled into a ring, too short, or falling short of the hock is a fault. Among the disqualifying points the standard also lists aggressive or overly timid behavior, any obvious physical or behavioral abnormality, and unilateral as well as complete cryptorchidism.

The coat gets the standard’s closest attention. The dog is covered all over in thick, long hair of 7 to 15 cm with a well-developed undercoat. Guard hair is of medium harshness, long, with a slight wave; in young dogs and while the coat is shedding it may run shorter. On the head the ornamental hair (furnishing hair in the English version of the standard) forms the mustache, the beard and the topknot, which covers the eyes and reaches the nose leather.

This is a requirement rather than a description, and the standard fences it in from both sides. A short topknot that fails to cover the eyes, and a thinly furnished mustache and beard, are faults. Total absence of topknot, mustache and beard is a serious fault. “Trimming it back so the dog can see” leads to the bottom of the ring; it is not a neutral cosmetic call.

Well-documented genetics sit behind all this. Cadieu and colleagues (Science, 2009, vol. 326, pp. 150–153) showed that the whole range of canine coats is governed by variants of three genes: RSPO2 drives the “furnishings” — mustache and eyebrows — and is inherited dominantly; FGF5 drives hair length, recessively; KRT71 drives curl, also recessively. The beard and mustache of the Odis are effectively the RSPO2 phenotype, inherited from the terrier and poodle lines; coat length is the work of FGF5.

Here comes the part that upends the assumption “there is Poodle in the breed, so the dog must be curly.” The Odis standard puts a curly coat among the serious faults and a soft, excessively wavy one among the faults. From the poodle inheritance the breed keeps length, density and furnishings — not the curl. The trio’s third gene, KRT71, works against the dog in the ring.

A separate line bans something that looks nearly revolutionary for a long-coated companion breed: “Any clipping that alters the shape of the dog is prohibited.” Compare the Old English Sheepdog (Bobtail), where show grooming is an art of sculpting the silhouette. The Odis is judged as it was bred, not as it was cut with scissors.

The standard lists the colors exhaustively, and the list deserves exact reproduction, because retellings degrade it fast:

• white;
• white with patches of various colors — except liver;
• white with gray (blue);
• dark gray;
• fawn in its various shades — except orange.

The standard does not rank these colors and calls none of them more desirable: all five are equal. What lies outside is spelled out clearly — any color the standard does not provide for, plus large vivid patches in the banned tones (liver, orange), goes into the serious faults.

The “BEHAVIOR / TEMPERAMENT” section of the Odis standard runs one word long: sanguine. That is unusual — most breed standards render temperament in adjectives (“balanced,” “courageous,” “reserved with strangers”), while here the drafters named the type of nervous system outright. The general description adds that the Odis is a cheerful, spirited, energetic dog.

The trait is guarded by the harshest tool cynology owns: aggressive or overly timid behavior is grounds for disqualification. Alongside it sits a broader clause — any dog clearly showing physical or behavioral abnormalities is disqualified. For a companion breed that is real insurance: small size often serves as an excuse for hysteria, and this standard takes the excuse away.

The breed club describes the purpose this way: a companion dog, good-natured and friendly toward people and other animals alike, undemanding to keep, easy to train, physically enduring, fond of long walks and able to join its owner on trips out of town. That is club language, not a clause of the standard — but it explains why the breed was built the way it was.

The working sense of “sanguine” is fast switching and an orientation toward people. The Odis was never meant to make independent decisions far from its owner: here it is the opposite of working scenthounds like the Latvian Hound, for whom autonomy in the woods is a professional virtue. The flip side: a dog built around human contact handles long stretches alone poorly, and in small companions boredom usually comes out through the voice. Training and routine manage this, but they have to do it deliberately.

The Odis really is apartment-sized, and the coat, not the square footage, sets the daily routine. What follows comes out of the text of the standard, not out of generic advice about long-coated dogs.

The comparison with the Maltese — one of the founding breeds — is instructive. Maltese coat is silky, has no undercoat, and is closer in structure to human hair, so show dogs are kept in wrappers to protect the length. The Odis inherited another construction: guard hair of medium harshness with a slight wave over a dense undercoat. That coat breaks less and needs less protection, but the undercoat stores dead hair inside — so the work moves from wrapping to steady brushing.

A long coat over undercoat has one more household consequence: out in fields and woods it acts as a brush for burrs, seeds and grass awns. After outings like that the dog has to be checked over completely, between the toes included.

• The standard names the temperament in one word. Under “Behavior / temperament” it says “sanguine” — a breed document speaking in types of nervous system rather than adjectives.
• The name came from a journalist. According to the breed club, the reading “Odesa Domestic Ideal Dog” was suggested by a journalist at a 2004 press conference, and the creators took it as official.
• A curly coat is a serious fault. Despite the Poodle among the ancestors, curl is unwanted: the standard puts curliness among the serious faults and a soft, excessively wavy coat among the faults.
• The scissors are held back by the document. Any clipping that alters the shape of the dog is banned by the standard — a rare clause for a long-coated companion breed.
• Group 0, standard 0. In the UKU table the Odis is entered with a zero group and a zero standard number: the administrative face of the status “breed recognized at national level.”
• The Poodle was not just any Poodle. Among the founding breeds the standard names specifically the silver Miniature Poodle — a detail that drops out of most retellings.
• An exception for fawns. The general rule is a black nose, but in fawn dogs the standard allows dark brown.

Is the Odis breed recognized by the Fédération Cynologique Internationale (FCI)?

No. The Odis is recognized at national level by the Ukrainian Kennel Union: in the UKU summary table it stands with group 0, standard number 0 and the status “Nationally recognized breed / WITHOUT CACIB.” Its standard is published in the UKU’s national standards section, not in the list of FCI breeds. In practice the UKU pedigree and titles work, while the international route to the title of International Beauty Champion in the FCI system is closed. The latest step in that direction is UKU Order No. 33 of June 23, 2026: a Working Group was created and told, among other things, to prepare materials for presenting Ukrainian national breeds to the FCI.

What height and weight does the Odis reach?

The standard sets ideal height at the withers separately by sex: males 37 cm with a tolerance of ±2 cm, females 35 cm with a tolerance of ±2 cm. It sets no weight at all, so any weight figure you run into is somebody’s estimate rather than a requirement of the breed.

Is the Odis hypoallergenic?

The breed is often called hypoallergenic because of its poodle ancestry, but the idea of “hypoallergenic breeds” was tested and did not hold up. Vredegoor and colleagues (Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 2012) compared levels of the major dog allergen Can f 1 in the coat and homes of so-called hypoallergenic breeds (Labradoodle, Poodle, Spanish Water Dog, Airedale Terrier) and of control breeds. The “hypoallergenic” coats in fact carried more Can f 1, and no difference showed up in airborne allergen concentrations indoors; the authors concluded there is no basis for classing particular breeds as hypoallergenic. What genuinely sets the Odis apart is how little hair reaches the floor and the furniture, because dead hair stays in the undercoat until it is brushed out. That is housekeeping, not allergy.

Does the Odis shed a lot?

The breed has no seasonal shedding “in clumps” of the kind short-coated shepherd dogs show. Dead hair stays in the dense undercoat, and the owner’s job is to comb it out regularly. A clean home rests on 2 to 3 brushing sessions a week; skip them and the hair does not land on the floor — it turns into mats on the dog.

Can the Odis be clipped short for the summer?

For a show dog the standard answers on its own: any clipping that alters the shape of the dog is banned. For a pet it is the owner’s call, but a coat backed by undercoat insulates both ways — against cold and against overheating and sun; and on a mostly white dog with pale skin underneath, sunburn is anything but theoretical. Hygienic tidying (feet, the area under the tail) is not covered by the ban.

Which documents and tests should you ask the breeder for?

Since the UKU has set no mandatory breeding examinations for the Odis, the buyer defines a sensible minimum, and the logical list follows from the founding breeds: a UKU stifle joint examination certificate (patella) for both parents, a BAER certificate for hearing, a DNA test for PLL (ADAMTS17) on the terrier side and for prcd-PRA on the poodle side. It is also worth asking to see the parents’ valid breeding certificate and the puppy’s registration certificate without the “Not for breeding” mark.