Thurs 8th April: The price of being a purebreed

Bee will have 2 corgi brothers to play with

We haven't had any new small dogs coming in for a while, and those that are available are usually surrendered rather than coming from AFCD or other sources.   Bee the corgi was brought to us when a human baby came along, and the best thing is that her new home is a serious upgrade from the previous one, something that always makes me smile inside.   In fact it's  often the case that being given up is the best thing that can happen, especially those surrendered because the owners admit they don't have time to take care of a dog.  Whatever the reason, we try our best to make sure that the new home is a happier one than the last. 

Suki exploring her new home

A second small dog was adopted today, one of the two "airport poms" that we got a few weeks ago via AFCD after they were confiscated at the airport.  They were sent over from a breeder in Taiwan and held for whatever reason, either because they were under the minimum age for puppies to be imported or the paperwork was incorrect.  Either way, such breeder puppies are held at the airport until they are cleared for release to animal NGOs, and when that happened we already had a potential adopter standing by.  Initially both poms were taken together, but today one of them went to her new forever home.  

It's worth mentioning for those people who still think that puppies imported from breeders in other countries are somehow superior to locally-bred dogs, that all breeders are the same lowlife creatures, and Taiwan is no better than Hong Kong in that respect.  The pom that was adopted today has some health issues as well as being very tiny, much smaller than her assumed sister, but luckily Suki's new family still wanted her after being told about the problems.  

There are no guarantees in life and that applies to everyone and everything but in general the healthiest of all dogs are the mixed breeds because every single "purebred" dog comes with a list of potential genetic health problems, and you can check online to see what they are.  The "pure" mongrels or village dogs/tong gau are the healthiest and hardiest of all, but these days in Hong Kong most mixed breeds have some "breed" genes in them which may carry a genetic fault.  That could be hip dysplasia or something  worse like a predisposition to cancer or autoimmune disease, and as an example the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel have a high incidence of a condition called syringomyelia.   I don't understand why dogs with this excruciatingly painful condition are allowed to be bred, passing on the suffering to their pups, but all breeds have their own special brand of inerited problems. 

"Due to the breed’s distinctive head shape, it is estimated that 95 to 99% of Cavalier King Charles Spaniels have a condition known as Chiari-like malformation (CM).  This skull malformation results in a mismatch in size between the brain and skull. In severe cases, the lack of space within the skull means the cerebellum, a portion of the brain, crowds the opening known as the foramen magnum, through which the spinal cord normally exits from the skull. Normally, the brain and spinal cord are bathed in a fluid called cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) that flows back and forth in a space around the spinal cord. The crowding that occurs at the foramen magnum creates turbulent flow in the cerebrospinal fluid, which in turn can result in accumulation of free fluid within the spinal cord, a condition called syringomyelia (SM).  Together, CMSM can be asymptomatic but can also lead to pain, phantom scratching, and various other clinical signs."