Weighted and found wanting.
In the last post I documented how the most inbred, most refined, most “perfect” and most human-needs serving fruit, the banana, is also at the most risk for global extinction. The Cavendish is a testament to thousands of years of domestication and agricultural improvement, and although a genetic bottleneck a century ago has left us with a product inferior to the one enjoyed for generations before, our own ignorance of what we’re missing has prevented all but a select few aficionados from even noticing.
As it is, we’ve been living most of the last century with a mostly sterile, highly inbred, and inferior product whose remaining days are limited, whose governing bodies are greedy and lack initiative and foresight, and whose legacy is perhaps more pain and destruction than sweetness and light, all while trading mostly on its ancestor’s good name and nostalgia for better times. If I didn’t just spend an entire post on bananas, you might think I was talking about the situation in kennel club dogs, no?
The purebred Chihuahua, like countless other dog breeds, is a genetic mess. Natural selection didn’t slowly shrink down wolves into Chis, man’s heavy hand stuffed 50 lbs of dog into a 5 lb casing. Chihuahuas are thus prone to structural defects: their teeth don’t fit in their jaws, their throats are too small to support their windpipes, their bones are brittle and their eyes and brains don’t fit well into their skulls.
Yes, we have no Chihuahuas! We have no Chihuahuas today!
We’ve Alsatians, Dalmatians, the fruits of a flirtation,
‘tween a half-pint Pekingese and a toupee.
But, yes, we have no Chihuahuas! We have no Chiuhuas today!
They have a high incidence for luxating patellas where the knee cap doesn’t stay where’s it’s supposed to, Legg-Calve-Perthes Disease where the joints die from poor blood supply and are broken down and reabsorbed, Corneal Dystrophy where the eye clouds over, and Cryptorchidism where one or more testes are undescended and/or malformed.
Inbred Chihuahuas make great pocket-sized kangaroos – which is just sad.
They are at a moderate risk of Portosystemic Shunts, where the blood supply to the liver is compromised so it’s not fed or flushed well. They are also at risk for Mitral Valve Disease where the delicate valves in the heart become calcified, thickened with scar tissue, and deformed.
They’re at greater risk of obesity, their bulging eyes are at risk for injury, and their skulls are a mess. Not only do the bones in their heads often fail to close fully, leaving behind a permanent “soft spot” called a molera; they are prone to encephalitis, hydrocephalus, and atlantoaxial subluxation.
They can barely produce one or two offspring per litter and even then, Cesarean sections are the rule, not the exception. Fetishists in Japan have made that population of Chihuahuas and other toy breeds one of the most inbred on the planet, and in the UK they have been found to be the most expensive dog (£90,000 over a lifetime) to keep. But even here in the USA we have our fair share of grossly mutated inbred Chihuahuas. I mean, just look at that thing, it’s two hind legs away from being a banana!
If it weren’t for the constant intervention of man, this breed would go the way of the Gros Michel banana. And frankly, so would the Alsatians, Dalmatians, and the Pekingese.
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Paris better enjoy her dogs while she can.
She may have to return to keeping kinkajous illegally.
http://www.exposay.com/celebrity-photos2/paris-hilton-is-bit-by-pet-kinkajou-baby-luv-02N.jpg
retrieverman recently posted..A Newfoundland dogs with retriever characteristics
🙁
THey’re one of my most favorite breed. :(((((
In your neck of the woods, they’re also the most over-bred over-dumped dog in shelters, even more than Pit Bulls.
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/dec/10/local/la-me-chihuahuas10-2009dec10
I saw that a few months ago, and I thought.
Do you remember TM doing a thing about how awful it was that pit bulls were being euthanized at such a high rate?
And he never wrote a word about chihuahuas.
retrieverman recently posted..A Newfoundland dogs with retriever characteristics
Which is rather ironic. I’m sure you could reconstruct a JRT by breeding pibbles to chihuahuas.
I have a pretty good collection of old dog breeding books. Almost all of them, in regards to toy dogs, state that larger bitches should be kept as brood bitches, and bred with small males who throw small puppies. Common sense.
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Sadly, the fashion for head size versus hip size made even “large” brood bitches inadequately endowed to deliver naturally. Inbreeding is just a lazy shortcut, so it doesn’t surprise me that they’d get rid of the whole keeping larger dogs around and risk larger puppies ethic too.
poor dogs this just ruined my day!!
Yep again breeding for extreme type & size(whether that be small or big) is going to be the death of many breeds. So sad, my aunty had Chi’s & I asked her why are they so big to be given quite an education on the fact that her dogs where actually closer to the true origanal type than what we see today in the show rings. It started my education & further study into just how deformed many of our breeds are today.
I breed a dog that is actually a landrace type not a breed & breed standerds are now calling for all 4 types to be breed to the 1 standard & we will lose the individuality of these wonderful ancient dogs. I have Tibetan Mastiffs & my heart aches for what they are set to become & to think we will lose the smaller more shephard type & the shorter but heavily boned, the long maned lion type & your once most common of all Do Kyhi type which is heavier of bone than the shephard type & longer of leg than the lion type with a broader skull than either prevous mentioned type & with lovely exspressive faces on an open clean headed type of Tibetan & all for a huge wrinkly, drooling(they would have frozen their mouths shut drooling that much in high parts of Tibet) unsound beast. I think it was 1 of the sub types just not as extreme in type as they are betraying the type to be in all honesty. It just makes me sick to think about it it really dose. Then some want just the Do Kyhi type & imho I think both views are flawed why can’t they all exist as the landrace type they are why do they have to all be confined to a breed type? Sure breeding like type to like type is preferable but would it not make good sence to use another sub type when new bloodlines are despratly needed than just more inbreeding or having to out cross to a completely different breed because we have destroyed & breed out the other breed types & sub breeds.
Pardon my French, English is not my mother tonue.
Christopher wrote: “Sadly, the fashion for head size versus hip size made even “large” brood bitches inadequately endowed to deliver naturally.”
If you’d know anything about chihuahuas you’d also know that it’s not the head size that causes problems in whelping. Hip size does matter, yes (in ANY breed). But more common reasons are as with any other breeds; lack of contractions, a single puppy grows too big to get through the birth canal, etc. A responsible breeder breeds with bitches born from self-whelping bloodlines.
In here Europe c-sections done to chihuahuas aren’t as common as is stated in this post. I’ve worked with chihuahuas for the past twenty years and I haven’t heard a single case of Legg-Perthes. I know there are some cases, but personally I can’t name a dog having that versus for example chinese crested dogs that I can give you a list of dogs having it. Patella luxation is more common, but not on a level that should get anyone worried. Breeders use mainly dogs with healthy knees but as with hip dysplasia, it seems to be impossible to get the problem out of dogs even if you use only the healthiest ones. As you might know, also wild wolves have hip dysplasia, missing teeth, incorrect bites, etc. and yet they have survived for how many decades just fine.
What is the attribute that makes a chihuahua easily obese? Might it be the people feeding the chihuahua..? Why is molera a bad thing, what does it cause? At least it doesn’t promote hydrocephalus, epilepsy, Syringomyelia or any other neurological conditions..
Or then the breed is doing a LOT better here in Europe than in the US. We don’t have pet stores selling puppy mill chihuahuas or people dumping them on every corner so I guess the quality of the breed is higher then. Most of the European chihuahua breeders are responsible, promote health and soundness and breed with registered dogs only. I’m sad to hear that chihuahuas in the US are doing this bad because it’s a wonderful breed and at least I wouldn’t want to see it extinct..
Weird attempt to shift the blame on the Americans away from the Europeans:
Christopher wrote:
Sounds like a long list of bullshit without any documentation. It’s a common refrain to say, “that is just not true of the breed in MY country,” but this never comes with any objective data. Nor does it come with an even plausible story on why the breed would be so different.
All European Chihuahuas come from New World stock, so by harsh numerical truth, your local gene pool is smaller and less diverse than the American dogs. If you’re trying to suggest that there is something magic in your water over there, you’ll need to provide more than your opinion of the breed’s health because the actual numbers speak harshly against your statements.
I was recently told the molera is a desirable trait because it means the dog is “pure”. Apparently having an opening in the bones protecting the BRAIN is not considered a problem for these people. When I asked if they would be equally as tolerant of a weak spot in the bones protecting the heart, I was told it was not at all the same thing, as a soft spot in the rib cage is not a breed trait.
The mind, it boggles.
On a nice note, the United Kennel Club has moved to ban moleras from the show ring. Judges are now to examine dogs for the presence of the molera & disqualify dogs which possess it, including filing a report with the UKC.
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I have read the about this moleras (soft spot) and so called opinions and it does not compute to this reader. Think the UK is taking proper precautionary action at this time.
I am so sorry I missed this piece the first time around, for it is one of my favorite chew toys. I thought I had just about chewed it up, so it is great someone else wants to help chew on it. The AKC Chihuahua is a breed based in complete denial of not only science, but facts. The facts of its origin are obscured and lied about; even long time breeders, 3rd generation breeders, believe the myths; no one bothers to check the work of the earliest AKC founding writers, for instance or they never comprehend the implications of what the writers said.
Unfortunately, this breed is based on the false premise of breeding tiny to tiny. If that worked, we’d have adult 5 ounce Chihuahuas by now, over a hundred years later, judging by what has happen to bull dogs, mastiffs, bassets, sharpeis, etc,etc. Instead, breeders refuse to recognize that the size itself is too small to breed from. It is a physiological fact. Since the demand for tiny is so great, smart breeders use “oversized” females breed to the itty-bittiest male that can tie a female, hoping to get some itsy bitsy pups. What happens is, the pups come in a range of sizes, some of them way ‘oversized’ as adults at 9, 10, even 15 pounds. Some will arrive at ½ ounce or so and grow up to be 3.5-4 pounds. A couple will be in the 4-6 pound range. I have posts in my blog explaining how the size varies in Chis and why, but it is due to ‘go bigger’ and ‘go smaller’ size alleles, 3 from each parent.
It is a fact the “successful” Chi breeders breed a lot of pups to get very few showable ones. And the females who are shown at five pounds are meant to breed? This is ghastly to me. For the truth is that the natural chi stock averages around 10 pounds. Here in Tucson, locals have always bred tons of these dogs. Take two 10 pound local Tucson stock of 150 years ago until the present- and breed them. You will get in every litter, at least one 5 pounder, though most grow up to be 8-12 pounds. In every few litters, you will get one that weighs .5 ounce at birth. Since those crazy Yankees would reach out of the trains to buy teensy pups held up to them, the buyers had NO idea what they had. The infamous James Watson, a founder of the breed -and of the AKC itself- bought one for the extremely (to a local) princely sum of $5 he named Manzanita. He kept her in his pocket, she never bred and died very young, but the rush for more of those pups was on, as James Watson was a much looked up to and fashionable dog man, scores of people came out to El Paso and Tucson to acquire these puppies, including the other important pioneer of the breed, Ida Garrett. Look them up. I have a bibliography on my site.
Thus began the dishonest and thankless task of trying to get a breed that is consistently 5 pounds at max! I say dishonest because the actual bitches they used were at least 6 pounds and could never be shown to get championships. The dumb breeders who thought they were being honest had to resort to caesarians and they had a high rate of loss in breeding a 5 pound or under, bitch. It confounds me that no chi breeder ever took a scientific look at the breed, or went back and checked the multitude of legends -such as they were found wild in Chihuahua, Mexico. Believe me, not one of those hopeful breeders ever crossed the border into Mexico to Juarez, which was extremely dangerous during the time Watson and other founders went to the southwest to get breeding stock. The border in Tucson was 60 miles and there were no trains, so it would be by stagecoach. No one has survived to tell that story, so we can safely assume the stock was bought out of the train windows. And that custom was still alive in Tucson when I was a kid in the 40’s. The locals still held up everything from local jewelry and foods to tiny dogs. I took the train to LA in 1946 and it was the same at the Yuma stop, where we did not get off.
Sorry to go on- maybe I’ll post this at my place.
Kate Williams recently posted..Chi-watch, January 2014
And Im glad you did fascinating reading…
“Found wild in Chihuahua”. This bit seems to coincide with my own crackpot theories of mini desert foxes being their ancestors.
Chihuahuas are very popular in Asia as are many other little dogs suitable for small living arrangements.
Our local puppy mill, pet shop breeds them in inbuilt cupboards (closets). The shop assistant once produced a sucking pup from a drawer, its mouth still in the shape of the teat it trembled and blinked blindly in the bright spotlights for a customers perusal. He found it wanting so she took another one out a different drawer.
When they reach a certain age they are put in a glass box on display, most are too young to be weaned, but little sells better. I expect they are put back in the drawers to suckle in the evening or do it in shifts. Some look quite cute, bold and dashing others very sad little deformed worms.
I once chose to believe these tweeny dogs were an ancient product of selection from desert fox type animals of similar size, this appeals to me even if I see Im now wrong.
One of the nicest little dogs I’ve ever known was a product of a small smooth long coat black Pekingese bitch and a “teacup” Chihuahua.
Bongo (we lived in Africa) had a velvet pitch black short coat with a very cute mini peke head its nose was just right, its eyes round black and shiny bright, its tail curly over its back. The most remarkable thing about him was his athleticism intelligence and loving nature.
Despite the bandy peke and weeny Chihuahua its legs were a decent length straight and slim, the whole thing racy but incredibly little.
Every day twice a day he came with me to inspect the banana plantation. It would leap the irrigation canals of a meter and wider with ease, chase lizards and mice and have a generally good time. We grew very close. Being so small he often slept curled up on my shoulder beside my neck while I worked in the evening while everyone else was hitting the cinema or local pub. We went night fishing off the rocks on the coast many times he would sleep on the flap of my canvass tackle bag and delight in a catch, huge waves crashing on the shore.
He would sometimes wake up and growl if he heard something he didn’t like like a baboon barking or a rustle in the bush. But mostly it was a steady sound purring he made. He made me a grown man feel safe such a tiny dog.
Sadly he belonged to a guest we had staying over Christmas with us and I missed him a lot when he had to leave as did the farm dogs who adored his antics. He hopped into the chopper (helicopter) like it was his basket and off they clattered high into the sky. Nerves of steel.
I would often think back and long for Bongo, I only saw him twice after that. Both times he instantly took to my side as naturally as if we were never parted.
A petite black Pekingese still gets my blood racing with the possibilities though I haven’t seen a decent one in years, the last was a pair in Andalusia both past their breeding age.
Bongo is alive and well at fourteen and lives in a safari camp in the Okavango swamp where he delights guests I hear, no doubt about it.
My question is how can we breed them to “fix them”? I don’t want to introduce luxating patella’s into the genetics into other dogs. However the relatively healthy genes are desired too. So what can be done by those who want to try?
I would recommend you start all over. Don’t even use AKC chi stock. Go get some original stock from the SW US, there is still plenty out there. Reject that 5 pound size for a least 8-10 pounds. do not breed the ones 5 pounds and under, even though they will occur because of the variable size alleles. The size of the “landrace” version averages around 10 pounds. 8-15 pounds would be about the second standard deviation if all sizes were on a Bell curve. The bigger chis are usually called “deer chihuahuas” because they have longish legs and a “deer” like face. They are still small dogs with that size-limiting gene, so they still have mousy looking, big eyes, but dental and knee problems are unknown in this bigger version as is the molera which only occurs when the dog is around 4 pounds or smaller. That is a function of the extreme tinyness, not a “correct genetic feature” 10 pounds is still a very small dog!