This is a useful PR move for the Kennel Club which recently announced that the high-profile breed list is a two-way-street. ("See...look how quickly a breed can come off the list!"). And I see the move has been welcomed already out on the breeder fora. But, actually, the addition of the breed to the HPB list was always a bit of an anomaly; added not because of conformation problems - but because of concerns raised on this blog and elsewhere regarding the denuding of these dogs with razors and depilatory cremes in order to make them conform to showring demands. The process can leave some dogs looking and feeling very sore.
Of course, breeders are still denuding the dogs. It's just that they're now doing it behind closed doors; not publicly on the benches - and, these days, they are more careful about presenting dogs that are obviously sore in the ring.
Why are they still doing it? Because showring fashion dictates that today's Crestie looks like My Little Pony - all flowing mane, tail and fetlocks - but bald elsehwere. Unfortunately nature rarely delivers such a dog.
So they fake it.
Today's Chinese Crested breeders have selected for hairier and hairier 'hairless' dogs in order to give them the requisite furnishings - and then they just remove the hair from the bits where they don't want it using electric and wet shavers and depilatory cremes.
What's wrong with that? Well in some cases they are removing a LOT of hair. Some of the dogs that you see naked in the show-ring would look like this if exhibitors allowed the hair to grow.
Here's what one American breeder, who has chosen to be honest about the process, describes as an "average" hairy-hairless in terms of natural body hair.
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| © Crestars Chinese Crested |
"Some Chinese Crested Dogs come with a very decent furnishing with minimal body hair," she explains. "The degree of thickness may also vary from thinner to thicker. Unfortunately they remain in the minority. Unless there is a good reason to let the hair grow, most breeders will keep the hairy Chinese Crested shaved most of the time. I am sure for most part; some breeders don’t even know just how hairy their dogs are because of the frequent routine grooming."
We've discussed the ethics of this here several times before and there's a diversity of opinion. Some think it's cheating. Crestie exhibitors in the main think it's just fine to do whatever it takes to make a dog look "good" for the showring. A few express concern about the loss of the original "true" hairless dog (there are still some to be seen in the show-ring, but they are very often beaten by their flashier, hairier cousins). Others believe that we shouldn't be breeding dogs with a mutation that leads not just to hairlessness, but very poor dentition; a mutation that is lethal in a double-dose.
While accepting that there are worse insults foisted on other breeds, I hate to see the videos on YouTube of very young puppies being wet-shaved or having their ears taped or glued to make them stand up correctly (something else Cresties often have to endure).
So what does the Kennel Club think?
Have a look at the wording in yesterday's release:
"The breed was added to the list in 2010, in light of welfare concerns about the shaving of some dogs for exhibition. The General Committee is satisfied that this issue is no longer of sufficient concern for the breed to remain on the HPB list."A casual reader might think that the KC is satisfied that dogs are no longer being shaved for the showring. But of course that's not true.
What the KC is really saying is that Crestie breeders can do anything they like to their dogs; just don't leave any marks that would give those horrid critics any ammunition.
Indeed, the KC endorses the denuding of the Chinese Crested. There has been never been any public censure of the practice; no KC dispproval that the breed standard (for what it's worth) is being completely flouted by today's Crestie breeders.
The KC's Breedwatch which highlights points of concern for judges states merely: "Clipper rash or burns caused by shaving." Not "dogs shaved to look like true hairless when they are not".
Absens haeres non erit.
See also:
The bald truth about the Chinese Crested
Breeding dogs for intentional defect (Terrierman)
After 20+ years of purposely breeding hairy dogs because of the normalization of this faking, I honestly think the damage cannot be undone. There is little knowledge that it's even possible (many breeders claim it's impossible to selectively breed for less body hair, nevermind that MORE body hair has been successfully selected for over the decades just fine) and most people just plain prefer the look of the artificial hairless to the real ones. There are also too few 'show worthy' lines at this point with enough focus on correct hairlessness to rebuild the original type for the breed without further loss of genetic diversity. There is no desire no impetus for anything to change and the majority are happy where they are with their pretty pretend-hairless dogs.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think the breed has become a parody of what it once was and shining example of show ring shallowness and is a lost cause. We can only hope the Xolo people learn from the history of the Crested's rapid metamorphosis after becoming a 'show breed' and don't follow suit into squandering their breed's unique characteristics.
What's to be expected? Many of these people are living in fantasy land. They still call this breed CHINESE CRESTED, even though it's about as Chinese as tacos and fajitas.
DeleteI think that if you can't accept historical evidence about your breed's actual origins, you've already trained your mind into refusing to accept any valid criticisms of your breeding practices.
Maybe there is a correlation between breed origin fantasy and bizarre breeding practices?
Incomprehensible to me why anybody likes or wants a bizarre looking hairless dog
Deleteit is incomprehensible to me why any man with hair would shave his head.. or why any want woman would want a bald man. they are bizarre looking. Is this really a topic for this blog
DeleteUnfortuanetly you could breed 2 true hairless togeher and still get hairy hairless in the litter No matter how many times you do it. The bloomin Vet checks where testing/ examining Powderpuffs So come on Jemimma get real here--there is imo no health or welfare issues re this breed Infact Cresteds imo are a very healthy robust Toy Breed
ReplyDeleteHey Pai Xolo's can be hairy as well as balds so there will be some born with more hair than others due to the Fox13 gene
ReplyDeleteSo Retrieverman Thou Great Almighty What are Cresteds to be called as Crested means pony tail Come on enlighten us
ReplyDeleteChinese crested dogs aren't from China. The mutation that makes them hairless originated in Mexican dog populations 4,000 years ago. There are many hairless dogs with this mutation in Latin America. The dogs we call Chinese cresteds were developed from two lines that were founded in the United States from this last century from crossing Latin American hairless dogs (probably not very many because this is a dominant trait) with Western toy and terrier breeds. The dogs are not Chinese or African, even though there is a dog taxidermy at the Rothschild Museum in Tring that looks like a Chinese crested, it's likely nothing more than the same cross between a xolo-type and a Western dog. There are plenty of xolos in Mexico that look very much like Chinese cresteds.
DeleteNot "dogs shaved to look like true hairless when they are not".
ReplyDeleteYou cannot make them look like something they are not due to the fact it is easy to look in their mouths and tell the difference
Do hairy hairless have better dentition than true hairless? Isn't it just that you could pick up a shaved powderpuff this way?
DeleteJemima
Hairy hairless are poor powderpuffs, check dentition they will have 'normal' dentition no forward facing tusks as true hairless do.
DeleteMy friend shows her's without shaving, always gets binned and has suffered horrifically at the hands of the breed. She's now terminally ill so am expecting her true hairless to be taken by rescue and disappear bred and exhibited without her name.
Can I double-check this? A commenter on a previous post about Cresties wrote this: "All hairless Cresteds, whether they be hairy or not carry the FOXI3 hairless gene (that's what makes em' hairless!) and as such passes on the primitive mouth - However this is not a fool proof method of identifying a Puff from a Hairless as you imply. Some True Hairless can have almost perfect dentition."
DeleteThis is what I understood to be the case.
I am very sorry to hear about your friend. She is brave to show her dogs without shaving them.
Jemima
Oh please.. it is sad indeed about your friend.. but to intimate that shaving a dogs is somehow detrimental to their well being is stupid. Some dogs are actually BATHED before a show..some are trimmed.. sometimes this gets done even to "regular dogs"..they are actually CLIPPED.. some have conditioner put into their coats.. oh the HORROR.. good for the KC to finally recognize that adding them to the "15" was a dumb move.
DeleteI don't believe I suggested anything of the sort, been showing for over 40 yrs love I know what goes on. I do believe breed club code of ethics tell breeders to allow prospective owners see the pup in its natural state thereby seeing what they are buying. In my experience that rarely happens, I can only speak of personal experience anything else would be hearsay.
Delete10. Prospective buyers should be allowed to view the puppy or older stock in their 'natural' state.
I do agree that the shaving issue was bogus knee jerk reaction in light of portugese water dogs, lowchens, poodles, etc that are shaved too.
But - and I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong - PWDs, Lowchens, Poodles etc are not shaved to the point of removing ALL hair. Have a look at this video of a Crestie pup being wet-shaved... way too roughly in my opinion, particularly when the razor is drawn against the hair growth. See from 2.33.
Deletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCY_H7wkqds
Jemima
Personally I'm with anon 29th 8:10, but since we're into Latin, "de gustibus nil disputandum" - no accounting for taste. If the show dogs don't suffer, and if their non-show brothers and sisters find good pet homes, then what harm is done?
ReplyDeleteI suggest to rename all this breeds to: Chinese Teethless, Peruvian Teethless and Teethless-itzcuintli. :)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
ReplyDeleteI breed True hairless, very successfully I might add. By saying that I breed true hairless, I mean that I DO NOT breed the hairy hairless mentoined in this article. Part of a good crested breeding program involves using powder puffs in at LEAST every other generation and NOT breeding cresteds with bad teeth. My dogs are NOT toothless and in fact, have beautiful mouths. It CAN be done through the art of selective breeding.
DeleteHi, first of all, my name is Pam. I can't figure out how to not be "anonymous".
ReplyDeleteI am an American show exhibitor. I am also a totally NON JH fan -No offense - I just want to say though that I find here at shows so many shaved exhibits in Cresteds. They are NOT my breed, but I do think they are cute. Back to the point though...AKC rules state that any alteration of a dog is a DQ. Now, I am not going to get into hair spray and chalk, those are for another day. But Nairing a dog (which DOES burn the skin) or shaving it to make it appear hairless should be a non issue, as in it should not be allowed. Until I read it here and on another blog I had no clue the steps people took. I had honestly thought the dogs were that hairless naturally. When I asked breeders here they were honest with me about what they do. This isn't shaving a Shetters neck, or trimming hocks or feet to make them neater. This is changing the dog physically to make it appear almost a different breed. In my mind it is sort of like someone shaving a Wire Fox then calling it a Smooth Fox.Thank you JH for posting this. I may not be a true fan, but I think you do have some good thoughts and will read this blog with a more open mind in the future.
Jemima, PLEASE if you should write about a breed, do your homework first.
ReplyDeleteAmount of bodyhair and dentition have ABSOLUTLY NO GENETICAL LINK!
You can have true hairless dogs with complet dentition, and hary hairless with poor dentition.
Liv
but anonymous 17;21 someone told her it was so it must be right because ofcourse if it supports her bias then she is happy to believe anything!!!
Deleteofcourse this probably won't get posted like my last few comments but nevermind i always print screen them for future reference.
I beg the differ, it's scientifically shown to be a correlation between hairlessnes and dentition. Google FOX13 and you will likely find scientific papers in the subject. But it is probably too much to ask for that before you yourself start to criticize someone else for not doing her homework.
Delete"Amount of bodyhair and dentition have ABSOLUTLY NO GENETICAL LINK!"
DeleteRight! "Mexican and Peruvian hairless dogs and Chinese crested dogs are characterized by missing hair and teeth, a phenotype termed canine ectodermal dysplasia"(http://www.sciencemag.org/content/321/5895/1462)
"You can have true hairless dogs with complet dentition, and hary hairless with poor dentition."
Even if this is true, just because the correlation is not 100% does not mean that there is no correlation.
It's not the full dentation that is the proof re hairless and puffs. It is the tusk shape and position of tusk eg forward pointing that let's you know
ReplyDeleteHaving just looked at the previous post 'The Bald Truth About the Chinese Crested', the two dogs photographed at Crufts look so sore. That poor dog's face looks red raw.
ReplyDeleteDo believe I said exactly that, some seem to read what they want to read, Normal dentition as opposed to FORWARD FACING TUSKS as seen in true hairless.
ReplyDeletecheck dentition they will have 'normal' dentition no forward facing tusks as true hairless do.
Helsinki are looking at dentition at present ie missing teeth, I send swabs from all of my breedings (not cresteds) to them for dna research, maybe they could clarify.
I'm more bothered by breeding for a lethal semi-dominant gene than I am by shaving. The hairless gene is dominant. Pups conceived that are homozygous for the hairless gene don't survive to be born. In most breeds, we strive to get rid of lethal genes. Why not just accept hair (and normal dentation)?
ReplyDeleteBtw, Anonymous 30 July 4:18, did you read the article you site? Here's a quote from it: "Mexican and Peruvian hairless dogs and Chinese crested dogs are characterized by missing hair and teeth, a phenotype termed canine ectodermal dysplasia (CED). CED is inherited as a monogenic autosomal semidominant trait. With genomewide association analysis we mapped the CED mutation to a 102–kilo–base pair interval on chromosome 17." If that's not genetic, I don't know what is!!!
Yes, the "Right!" was meant to be sarcastic.
DeleteBreeding with a chance of getting dead pups seems wrong, but the pups will not even be stillborn, they die early and get reabsorbed. Can this be said to harm the pregnant bitch or the reabsorbed fetuses?
Sorry . . . skim reading can be hazardous.
DeleteSubjectively, based on my own morals, I think it's wrong to deliberately select for genes that make the homozygous inviable . . . unless there's a good reason to keep the lethal gene going. The show value of oddities isn't a good enough reason in my books. If the lethal gene gave immunity to, say, parvo virus, it would be a different matter.
All canine pregnancies result in some resorption of fetuses. There have been studies done in lab beagles, and in Mexican street dogs; the rate of resorbed fetuses is about 11%, IIRC. It is a normal part of pregnancy in animals that have litters. If you are going to argue that breeding dogs that will result in fetal resorption is morally wrong, well, I'll let you take that to it's logical conclusion.
DeleteOf course not! Breeding two heterozygous dogs will lead to 25% resorbed over and above the normal rate, and the heterozygots end out with varying dental abnormalities and skin that lacks the protection offered by a normal coat. Only the 25% homozygous for hair will be normal. The resorbtion isn't what bothers me . . . it's the principal of cultivating deleterious mutations to get a novelty. As deleterious mutations go, prenatal death is relatively benign. At least it reduces viability before birth.
DeleteI am not a fan of the Chinese Crested, to me they look bizarre, but that’s just a personal opinion. I also understand that the hairless gene is a lethal one cannot be bred together for many generations (I am sure someone will correct me if I am wrong), and in the main if not totally have forward Facing (INCORRECT) teeth.
ReplyDeleteHowever I have known a Powder-puff which was a delightful dog, full of fun and character. It has a completely normal bite
I see no problem with the breed being shaved for the ring, its no different in my opinion to clipping poodles for example, and it seems to me that the Kennel Club were quite right to remove them from the list.
However it seems to me that we have a rather odd situation the only good hairless dogs are actually “Hairy” and are shaved for the ring. So in actual fact they are not Hairless at all. They are simply very poor powder puffs. But by shaving them the judges are being fooled into thinking they are hairless and therefore reward them accordingly.
This seems wrong to me. If I were to breed a fabulous truly hairless dog, with the characteristic tusks, it would be beaten by dogs which are NOT naturally hairless and have incorrect teeth and that surely is not right?
But I am not sure that the Kennel Club can do anything about this? It cheating at the end of the day but how do they prove it is happening?
Carol
Carol, as you say as long as the dogs don't suffer, no call for KC's intervention - or for us keyboard warriors to tell the breed club how to run their shows. As most judges are themselves breeders, I doubt they are fooled; I also doubt whether their BoB ever goes BiG, let alone BiS, under non-Crestie judges.
DeleteWhether they do suffer depends, I guess, on the method of hair removal. Hope they don't use this... http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/B000KKNQBK
Fab reviews... :-)
DeleteIt is easy to spot a shaved puff from a hairless in the ring by their teeth. hairless may have full dentition or may have teeth missing BUT all hairless be it true, moderate or hairy have conical shaped forward facing tusks. check out hairless mammals-- they have front/ forward facing tusks
ReplyDeleteI've had several hairless dogs with cone shaped fangs, this being much more common in my dogs than forward facing tusk teeth, especially in the puppies who almost never had tusk teeth.
DeleteIn my dogs the cone shaped puppy fangs were often the only fangs, the adult fangs never came in. But I remember one dog with only fangs on the top, and another with both adult fangs on the bottom jaw, but no fangs on the top.
Mostly it was just the fang teeth which were affected, but I recall one older rescue lacking incisors.
If I remember correctly, when the AKC admitted the Cresties, they directed the show judges NOT to look in the mouths of the hairless Cresties. In the AKC show ring, the judges check all the other breed's teeth.
DeleteOK, I can still not get how to NOT be anonymus, so I will do as I did in my last post, sign with my name umder the post.
ReplyDeleteThere IS a connection between hairlessness and missing teeth, but THERE IS NOT any link between the amount of hair in a hairless and dentition.
You can have true hairless with complete or almost complete set of teeth and you can have very hairy hairless with poor dentition.
And Carol, you can breed hairless to hairless forever, and it will not affect the health or lifespan of the pups beeing born.
A hairless carry BOTH the gene for hailessness and the gene for coat, the puff carry only the gene for coat, so the puff's have nothing to bring into a combination that a hairless dosn't.
And what is the problem in breeding a hairless to a hairless?
OK the pups getting the hairless gene from both parents will never be born, and if your not even born you will not suffer from it in any way.
So what's the problem?
And the sorting out of the fetals with a double up of the hairless gene must happend very early in the pregnancy, cause litters from hairless x hairless dosn't have any significant variations of size/numbers of pups, compared to hairless x puff, or even puff x puff.
And Cresteds are not the only breed with a gene who's leathal if doubled up.
The gene giving blunt tail in Welsh Corgies are also leathal if the pup is homozygote for it, but I have never heard anyone raising their voice againt breeding them.
Why?
Liv
And primitive mouth and poor dentition is not the same thing.
ReplyDeleteLiv
"And Cresteds are not the only breed with a generation who's leathal if DOUBLED up.
ReplyDeleteThe generation thanksgiving blunt tail in Welsh Corgies are Also leathal if the pup is homozygote for it, but I have never heard anyone raising Their voice againt breeding Them.
Why? "
You're right, cretseds is not the only race as a gene that is lethal when it doubled. Cresteds is not the only breed that has breedcharacteristics that are harmful to them.
Why you have not seen anyone question the breeding of welsh corgi in the same way as crested is probably due because you havnt read about them and not because the criticism is not there. There are quite a lot of criticism about all the different sine qua none disorders, but you have given some reading about other races than their own to see the criticism of the breeding of these genes.
http://www.astraean.com/borderwars/2011/08/sine-qua-non-dog-disorders.html
I am a Crested breeder and I do not hide the fact that there are different degrees of hairlessness, but this does not affect their genetic make-up when it comes to their health. Many of these dogs are sold as pets and never have the hair removed, does this affect their health, absolutely NOT! Even shaving the hair off does not affect their health, no different than pet owners shaving down their mix breed dogs. Breeders are well aware how hairy their dogs are, they are not 'fooled' because of the constant grooming, which also is better for a dog's health. I've seen more matted "pets" than dogs owned by breeders. Because of our "constant grooming" we know our dog's bodies and notice any changes to it and can address them before it becomes a real problem.
ReplyDeleteYou also need to do your research. The comments and photo from the "American" breeder, were a direct quote from her website and you were previously asked to remove them. She is also not from America, so make sure when you post information, it is correct.
Lesley
Can I double-check this? A commenter on a previous post about Cresties wrote this: "All hairless Cresteds, whether they be hairy or not carry the FOXI3 hairless gene (that's what makes em' hairless!) and as such passes on the primitive mouth - However this is not a fool proof method of identifying a Puff from a Hairless as you imply. Some True Hairless can have almost perfect dentition."
ReplyDeleteThis is what I understood to be the case.
Jemima .... this is still the case!
The FOXI3 gene is responsible for the formation (or lack thereof) of hair and dentition. It creates missing hair, missing premolars and conical, often forward facing tusks (caine teeth).
The Hairless (true hairless or hairy hairless) Chinese Crested possesses the FOXI3 gene. The powderpuff doesn't.
A hairy hairless is NOT a poor powderpuff ... they are a genetically hairless dog - but with more body hair than normal and/or desired. Research is being conducted at the moment at Bern University in Switzerland to try and identify a MODIFYING gene which is thought to be responsible for the amount of body hair a hairless dog does or does not carry. Blood samples from hairless cresteds around the world (true hairless and hairy hairlesses) are being sent to the University for the research.
Hairless have a different genetic makeup. The Powderpuff has a normal genetic makeup i.e. no mutated gene and has completely normal dentition (as per any other coated breed of dog that doesn't possess the FOXI3 gene)
The Hairless will generally display missing premolars, conical shaped canines which paint forward slightly and often missing teeth.
If a Powderpuff has poor dentition then it is bad breeding! They should have a perfectly normal mouth as they are genetically perfectly normal. If a (so called)Powderpuff displays forward pointing tusks, missing premolars etc - then it's usually an extremely hairy hairless mistaken for a Powderpuff.
The FOXI3 is still being researched as there is still so little known about the hairless mutation. There appears to be varying factors in the amount of hair a hairless dog posseses as well as the way their teeth are formed. Not all hairless dogs have a lot of missing teeth .. some have a lot more teeth than others. However they will generally not have a COMPLETELY NORMAL MOUTH because FOXI3 does not produce normal dentition. There will always be varying 'degrees' in which the hair and teeth are affected - it's not a one size fits all end result - but it's there nonetheless.
In pre-Columbian hairless breeds, each hairless dog has one copy of the hairless gene, and one copy for normal hair. These two genes are co-dominant, meaning that they are both expressed.
ReplyDeleteThink of it like a calico cat or a tortie coloured cat - both the orange gene and the black gene are BOTH seen in the same cat.
Some of these kittens are mostly black with just a little bit of orange, other kittens in the same litter are mostly orange with some black hairs, but many tortie kittens are about half black and half orange. (The splashes of white are from a different gene).
The varying ratio of black hairs to white hairs is called "variation of expression " of the orange gene. In pre-Columbian hairless dogs, the hairless gene also has variation of expression.
In Manx cats the tailless gene has variation of expression - some Manx cats with the tailless gene have an indent where the tail should be, some have a tail stub, some have half of a tail, others have an almost normal tail. Again this is variation of expression of the gene, because the normal gene is co-dominant with the mutation which is being bred for.
In the tortie cats, the mutant orange gene is NOT fatal if a kitten has two copies of it - which makes an orange tabby or marmalade coloured cat.
But the Manx tailless gene and the pre-Columbian hairless gene cause embryos that have two identical copes of the mutation to not develop or they die after conception but before birth. (I don't know WHEN this exactly occurs).
All pre-Columbian hairless breeds, and breeds believed to be developed from them, like the Chinese Crested, are hairless because they have one normal gene and one hairless gene.
Think of it as a battle, within the embryo, between the normal gene and the hairless gene. Usually sometimes one gene wins a round, other times the other gene wins a round, so the puppy is often born with hair in some places, and nude skin in other places. In these dogs the normal hair making gene usually wins on the head, tail, and legs, but the hairless gene wins on the body and neck.
That should read "the varying ratio of black hairs to ORANGE hairs is called 'variation of expression' of the orange gene."
DeleteIn pre-Columbian hairless dogs, the same gene which interferes with hair growth, also interferes with tooth growth. But, just like the variation of expression in the hairiness or baldness, there is variation in the effect on tooth development.
ReplyDeleteThe question being asked here is: does a pre-C hairless dog with very few hairs (a baldy) have a greater effect on his teeth than what a hairier pre-C hairless dog would have? (The "stronger gene" guess).
Or, is it like a calico cat, if you find a black patch, the patch next to it is often orange? (The "patched expression" guess).
(I made up labels for the two sides of the argument so that we wouldn't get lost in the discussion).
Myself, I'd say that the age of the dog often decides how many teeth have fallen out. But there is variation in the teeth of the puppies, but I'm not sure that a puppy with lots of puppy teeth will have more teeth as an adult than a different puppy who was missing several of his puppy teeth. (Just like children have baby teeth and adult teeth, so do many animals).
About the forward facing "tusk" teeth. I have seen where the canine fangs in pre-C hairless dogs grows like this, but also I have seen where the puppy has gaps where the fangs should be, and the puppy fangs don't arrive until when the adult fangs should have.
I have seen where puppies have only the upper fang teeth, none on the lower jaw. Some pre-C hairless dogs have normal teeth except the fangs are the size of puppy teeth and are cone shaped (lacking the curve of modern dog teeth).
Myself I never noticed any correlation between the teeth and the amount of baldness. Totally bald puppies in the same litter, still varied in their teeth, but not remarkably from hairier puppies - which just means that I was looking into their mouths, but never thought to look for a correlation, and never happened to notice any.
If there is a correlation it wasn't obvious to me. Sample size was just a few litters.
Note: some dogs are hairless because of a different gene. The American Hairless Terrier, aka The Hairless variety of the American Rat Terrier, a dog type made to kill rats on farms - said to be from fox terriers, Jack Russels, beagles, whippets, and Italian Greyhounds, plus a little of whatever feist or what have you was around the farm.
That gene is recessive, the teeth are totally normal and strong, the puppies are born with fuzzy hair which they she in about 6 weeks. The dogs usually have some peach fuzz all over. They are very active and playful. The gene appears to only effect the teeth. Unlike the pre-C gene, the AHT dogs breed true - all of their puppies will be hairless.
Sorry, I was half asleep, that should read: " which they SHED in about 6 weeks."
DeleteWhat is the answer?
ReplyDeleteMaybe, change the classes for the show ring to:
1 powder puff, not clipped.
2 powder puff, pony clipped.
3 hairless gene, pony clipped.
4 hairless gene, baldie.
Note, that this allows breeders to show the powder puffs clipped. That way they can just bred dogs without the hairless gene. We can work on what types of clips later.
Then aim for hairless to hairless breeding to produce baldies - it won't, but the breeders will work away from too much hair where it isn't wanted.
In Mexican Hairless dogs, the coated puppies are not traditionally considered members of the breed, although almost every litter has them. That makes it easier.
Really, there will never be an answer, because, like the Manx tailless gene, one gene never really dominates the other, so you keep getting all these puppies that are neither here nor there, but some shade of inbetween, not fully coated, not baldies, not even pony coated, sorry to say, but just scraggly or mangy looking.