Length of the smooth coat...

[Gurkan]

The first time I bred two smooths I had a litter of 4 smooths and 1 rough. Two of the smooths had a longer coat and two a shorter.

This dog has a longer smooth coat


This bitch has a much shorter smooth coat

The sire of these two littermates is a blue smooth dog from a smooth x rough breeding. Here he is at 11 years of age


The dam is a smooth with longer coat, also from a smooth x rough breeding


I believe the length of the coat varies in smooths just as well a it does in roughs. If you breed from ultra shorthaired smooths you most likely have very shorthaired smooths. If you breed from smooths with longer coat, you will have smooths with longer coats. If you mix the two, you will most likely have both.

[admin]

Thanks so much for taking the time to post these examples of your smooth coats. A "visual" is always great to help illustrate the words.

I have certainly seen the introduction of smooths in our lines affect the quality , density, and length of our rough coats. The overall quality of the coat is more correct in its texture and density but I will say the length every so often will show up as a "smuff" (smooth/rough).

Another thing that we have seen twice is in puppies whos parents were both rough, with one of the parents in the immediate background being by all measures and standards deemed a "smooth" at the time we placed the puppy, then at about 5-7 months old the coat started to grow. .....and grow.......and grow.!

The dog was not a "smuff" but a gloriously coated rough as an adult.

Oh..and one more oddity breeding smooths and roughs at Chinarose. Most of our smooths, just behind the right ear had a patch of 6" long coat about 1/2" in circumference. If we let it grow it could almost be a short leash...lol.

It is a genetic thing as we have had reports of a couple of smooths generations down the road with the same long tress...and only behind the right ear. Kind of a birth mark as the skin was tinted slightly darker at that location.

[sitze-gou]

I have owned smooth chows for over 22 years now. I have been watching the smooth since the 1982 issue of Chow Life cover had picts of 2 smoothies in front of (I believe but am not sure) the Alps. I believe this pict was taken by Janneke Rooseboom. I have seen many a smooth, bred quite a few, and shown many also.

Within my own realm of experience this is what I have seen;

1) there is a genetic quality that governs the smooth vs rough issue
2) there is a genetic quality that governs length of coat within each (smooth or rough)
3) there is an influencing allele that "masks" the nominally accepted dominant rough variety and instead expresses neither as dominant via the negating of the trait being a simple recessive as authors have referred the smooth vs rough characteristic as such.

Therefore; the length of coat on a smooth may vary from a short version to a longer version (so long as it does not present featherings, furnishings, or a mane) as a rough coat may range in length from what we have called here in the US an "English coat" to a very flowing and long version of such with furnishings, featherings, and mane.

Here in the US, most likely due to the pushing aside and non-breeding for smoothes from the 1940's when they were written out of the standard until 1984 when they were readmitted into the US standard, we see smoothes coming from rough to rough breedings and rough to smooth breedings and roughs coming from smooth to smooth and smooth to rough breedings.

If smooth were dominant over rough, as published in general canine studies, then having rough offspring from from smooth to smooth breedings would not be possible without an influencing allele.

B Buell

[Zheng He]

I was thinking that having smooth from rough and rough was totally impossible ... and since I started (not very far ), I never see in France a smooth coming from rough and rough.

[sitze-gou]

No, it is not "impossible" to produce a smooth from a rough to rough breeding. I have had such and the first conformation Ch. smooth within AKC, Ch. Bearkat Little Big Man, was just that. Both his parents not only were roughs but also had no smooths in the pedigree behind him for quite some time.

Dusty's Pedigree is here;

http://chowhealth.org/cgi-bin/geneal.pl ... b=chow.dbw

B Buell