Hairless Dog
- Type
- Other
- Coat
- Hairless, with coated dogs born in the same litters
- Status
- A type, not a single breed; some hairless breeds are recognised worldwide
A hairless dog is not a single breed but a type: any dog with an inherited tendency to hairlessness and hair loss. Several distinct breeds share the trait, and others are said to have existed in the past.
History
Two kinds of genetic hairlessness are known, one dominant and one recessive. The dominant kind is a form of ectodermal dysplasia caused by a mutation in a gene called FOXI3.
Dogs with the dominant gene can pass it on without any human management. It is therefore possible that groups of hairless dogs arose on their own in some parts of the world, and that people later shaped them into the breeds known today.
The hairless breeds recognized worldwide are the Chinese Crested Dog, the Xoloitzcuintle (Mexican Hairless Dog) and the Peruvian Inca Orchid. The Argentine Pila, the Hairless Khala of Bolivia and the Ecuadorian Hairless Dog are hairless breeds that are not registered. The American Hairless Terrier and the Jonangi are also counted among the hairless breeds.
Breeds said to have existed in the past include the Siamese Hairless Dog and the African hairless dog, also called the Abyssinian sand terrier, the Egyptian hairless dog or, because of its gray skin, the African elephant dog.
Appearance
In the breeds where hairlessness is dominant, an embryo that inherits the gene from both parents does not survive. Every hairless dog of this kind therefore carries one copy of the hairless gene and one copy of the coated gene, which is why fully coated puppies keep appearing in these breeds.
On average, mating two hairless dogs gives about two hairless puppies for every coated one. A hairless dog mated to a coated one gives roughly half of each, and two coated dogs produce only coated puppies.
The coated variety of the Chinese Crested Dog is called the Powderpuff and is a recognized type. The coated Xoloitzcuintle is accepted for showing by some registries, including the AKC. For other breeds, whether coated dogs may be shown depends on the breed and the registry.
Facts on this page were checked against Wikipedia and may have changed since.