AmandaS

To be fair they say there was a lot of "gift giving" and exchange of dogs amongst the Nobility of the day. The Temple Priests swapped Lhaso Apso and Shi Tzu puppies, which were interbred. And I would not be at all surprised if Japanese Chin were interbred with some lines of the Peke. The colouring and lack of coat being a clue to this possibility. Here is a portrait of Looty, one of the first Pekingese in Europe and owned by Queen Victoria. She was stolen from the Chinese Empress's summer palace during the Opium Wars. Japanese Chin were the descendants of Chinese Pekingese imported (or given as gifts) into Japan centuries ago. The clue is in the name "Chin" for China. It's likely that Tibetan Spaniels are similarly descended from Chinese Pekingese mixed with some local Tibetan dogs. All these dogs are sacred in lamaistic Buddhism and were exchanged from monastery to monastery. By the way here is a photograph of Looty for those not sure about paintings.

To be fair they say there was a lot of "gift giving" and exchange of dogs amongst the Nobility of the day. The Temple Priests swapped Lhaso Apso and Shi Tzu puppies, which were interbred. And I would not be at all surprised if Japanese Chin were interbred with some lines of the Peke. The colouring and lack of coat being a clue to this possibility. Here is a portrait of Looty, one of the first Pekingese in Europe and owned by Queen Victoria. She was stolen from the Chinese Empress's summer palace during the Opium Wars. Japanese Chin were the descendants of Chinese Pekingese imported (or given as gifts) into Japan centuries ago. The clue is in the name "Chin" for China. It's likely that Tibetan Spaniels are similarly descended from Chinese Pekingese mixed with some local Tibetan dogs. All these dogs are sacred in lamaistic Buddhism and were exchanged from monastery to monastery.

There is a history behind that ridge, it is part of the breed and IMO not something that should ever be lost. http://www.macumazahn.com/rrhistory.html *Taken from the above link: "The Rhodesian Ridgeback originated in Southern Africa where the early European settlers mated their sporting breeds with the small, fierce, hunting dogs, owned by the Hottentots, in order to produce a guard/hunting dog ideally suited to the local conditions." In the early days it was found that the ridged dogs were better hunters than the non ridged dogs, thus they were the ones that were bred from. It was not cosmetic at all. The standard for the breed was simply developed to preserve the breed: "During the late 19th Century, the reputation of "Ridgebacks" in the hunting field became established by the exploits of these dogs. Van Rooyen's dogs were very similar to today's Rhodesian Ridgebacks. By the 1920's, when the days of big game hunting on a grand scale were drawing to a close, it became apparent that "Ridgebacks" might disappear if the breeds were not standardized and breeders encouraged to strive to conform.The standard of the breed, which borrowed much from the Dalmatian Standard, was drawn up by a Mr. F.R. Barnes after he called a meeting of "Ridgeback" owners in Bulawayo in 1922. This Standard was accepted by the South African Kennel Union (now the Kennel Union of Southern Africa) in 1924." PDE twisted that information to make it sound like the ridged dogs were unhealthy mutants, and that breeders callously culled any dogs born without the "cosmetic" ridge. The truth is that yes, there are a small percentage of dogs who are born ridgeless, and yes they are "culled" from the lines. But more often than not "culled" means not bred from or shown - or in other words placed in pet homes. It is true that some breeders will still pts, but they are in the minority. Ridgebacks can be born with a condition called Dermoid Sinus. http://www.htmlspinners.com/CalicoRidge/Ri...ack/Dermoid.htm Puppies are checked at birth (and usually weekly thereafter) for this condition. A pup with DS is usually put to sleep, though depending on the severity it can be operated on. DS occurs in both ridges and ridgeless puppies "The D.S. is generally found on the midline of the neck, back, and tail along the spinal column. Although rarely found in the ridge there have been several cases noted. Dermoid sinuses have also been noted on ridgeless puppies." Though the ridge may be cosmetic in a sense it is a major part of the breeds history, and as it does not affect the health of the breed I see no reason why it should ever be bred out. On this website about the native dogs of South Africa, they say that a ridge is present in only a small minority of native dogs. I think that when the Rhodesian Ridgeback was formed as a breed, the ridge which was inherited from the native dog was seized on as a "distinguishing" characteristic; something to set the breed apart from others. This wouldn't have mattered except for the fact that the ridge has an association with the illness dermoid sinus. For this reason the Africanis society do not recommend breeding dogs which have ridges. I myself have Siamese cats (the old fashioned style). I'm so glad that the creators of the Siamese cat as a breed in the UK didn't choose to make the tail deformities that cats from Thailand quite often carry into intrinsic characteristics of the breed and, in effect, have bred out these deformities from the Western population of Thai cats. Selective breeding should be used to select against deformity and characteristics associated with disease, rather than in favour of them.

I think people buy them because they are readily available, look incredibly cute, and are promoted as pets. what more could a buyer want? Since PDE there does seem to be some resistance to purebred dogs. I often ask owners of these x breds why they bought them, and the answers are interesting. Most who wanted low shedding never heard of bichons, and think poodles are poofy. And they have no idea where to get one. I asked someone once why they went to a pet shop to buy a pup. "Where else would you go?" Registered dogs are unpromoted to the public, and very difficult to source anyhow, so they go with the crosses. And if someone is happy with a breed or cross, they tend to get another one when they need a new dog. That's natural. People often get to know and like a breed through knowing one - and there are a lot of oodle doodles out there to get to know. Additionally, baby oodle doodles are mostly incredibly cute - most look just like teddy bears, with big round eyes and fluffy hair which is very appealing to most people. I don't have a problem with people wanting an oodledoodle - purebreds are hard to find, and if that is what they want, why not? The only thing I have a problem with is the breeding dogs suffering their whole lives. And I have a very big problem with that. Edited because I forgot this. I think it would be much better to encourage registered breeders to breed more pups - those who wanted to - and to promote oodledoodle substitutes to the public. We are well along with most breeds with good health, and anything an oodledoodle has, a purebred has too - but people aren't aware. However, until we get the purebred numbers up to where they were 15 years ago, we can forget it. And I don't believe any decent registered breeder would sell breeding stock for crossbreeding, and without good breeding stock, x bred breeding will never improve. Breeders are so vehement that they will buy any and all adult dogs of their breed advertised on p****** or the local paper to avoid puppy farmers/cross breeders/byb getting their hands on them. Jed, I agree with you. I have seen a relative of mine acquire a Maltese Shih Tzu cross and that, from her family's point of view, the dog has been a great success. The reason that they chose this cross breed was not because it appealed to my relative or her husband but because their fifteen year old son really liked his friend's dog who was that combination and that's what he wanted. Yes, their dog took quite a long time to house train (an issue I believe with both parent breeds) and she has an incredible tangly coat but they manage this by keeping it clipped quite short. They're not highly motivated dog owners as far as daily walks and training is concerned but she has been well socialised and is a much loved family member so, from this perspective, I think it's better that they ended up with a toy dog rather than a Miniature Schnauzer which was another breed that they were considering. Since I quite often take her for walks in the park, I've become aware of the fact that there's lots of other similar little dogs out there. I also work with a couple of women who have this particular cross breed. One of them explained to me that she liked the fact that the dog's muzzle was longer than a Shih Tzu (i.e. less prone to breathing issues) and that at the same time was a bit larger and more robust than a Maltese. I remember that when the Melbourne Herald Sun published the most common breed types by council registrations, Maltese crosses and Shih Tzu crosses were in the top five most common types. I'm only mentioning this because personally I'd like to see the puppy farmers put out of business, I'd like for dogs and cats not to be sold through pet shops and, I'd like to see people be able to acquire the dogs they want through ethical sources.

What I observe is that there is a big popularity of cross-bred toy dogs. In particular crosses involving Maltese, Shih Tzus and Toy Poodles seem to be really common. I also notice that because these breeds, whilst different, have some common traits such as having a low prey drive and a low shedding coat that, in the main, the people owning these dogs seem to be happy with them and often seek a similar type of dog when looking for their next dog. Sadly most of these dogs come from pet shops (i.e. puppy farms) or backyard breeders. I think that it would be interesting to think about why many people are choosing the cross breeds over the pure breeds of these dogs and whether it would be possible to set up an ethical breeding program to breed a moderate type, friendly, healthy, low shedding small companion dog from a suitable selection of parent dog breeds.

I used to see a basset at dog school - and totally agree with you. The basset pictured in this book is by FAR a better looking dog. The basset? They show six breeds of Basset, most of them rough coats. Where have they all gone? The Rough Coated Basset of Brittany is now in Australia as Basset Fauve de Bretagne although it only has a solid tawny red coat without any white markings. The Rough Coated Basset of Vendee is the Petit Basset Griffon Vendeen. If anything the contemporary versions of these Bassets are more moderate than their depictions in the breed book. They've certainly had a more fortunate development than the poor old Basset Hound.

The French pronounce the word as fOHve (rhymes with ROVE). Why wouldn't we use the same pronunciation?