We have studied the variability of four structurally complete dog leukocyte antigen @LA) class I genes, termed DLA-12, -88, -79 and -64, in a population of mixed breed, unrelated dogs. The human HLA and canine DLA loci share a high degree of similarity in terms of gene structure. This analysis focused on the first three exons of each of four complete canine genes. Exons two and three are the major source of polymorphism in the corresponding human genes. In this analysis, DLA-88 was found to be significantly more polymorphic than the other three genes, with 44 distinct alleles observed among 63 mixed breed, unrelated dogs. The remaining