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O, be some other name!
What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
-William Shakespeare
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It appears that an awful lot of Havanese breeders out there are suddenly going to great lengths to convince potential puppy buyers that all Havanese are also Havana Silk Dogs, and are stating on their websites that Havana Silk Dog is in fact "just another name for the Havanese", which is understandably confusing to puppy buyers.
To lessen the confusion somewhat, I thought I'd address it here, starting with a couple of photos. The dog on the left is an HSDAA registered Havana Silk and conforms to the standard for its breed; the one on the right is an AKC registered Havanese and likewise conforms to the standard for its breed. In fact, both are champions in their respective breeds. Each closely resembles the dog pictured on the logo of its respective National Parent Club in "make and shape" as well as coat type.
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This is one of those cases where a picture is worth a thousand words. Not to put too fine a point on it, but one would have to be a total idiot to look at the two dogs pictured above and believe for a moment that they were the same breed, much less try to convince anyone else of it.
No, the newly reconstructed Havana Silk Dog and the modern Havanese are not the same breed. In fact, it appears they never were the same breed, which is more than a little funny. According to Zoila Portuondo Guerre, founder and first president of the Club Cubano del Bichón Habanero in Cuba and world-recognized authority on the Havanese breed, in her book Havanese published back in 2003:
“This Blanquito de la Habana or Perro Seda de la Habana (Havanese Silk Dog) as it was later called, has erroneously been identified as the Havanese or Maltese, and this has led to confusions and misconceptions.”
The Havanese, according to this undisputed breed authority, was developed in the 19th century and represents “the sum of a great variety of antecedents", including the Perro Seda de la Habana (Havana Silk Dog), a much earlier dog of Cuba, and which has long been considered extinct.
The Havanese may indeed be the National Dog of Cuba, and deservedly so, but recent DNA findings support Ms Guerra’s opinion that it is NOT the original dog that was found throughout Cuba and the rest of the Caribbean centuries earlier.
And it is that early Caribbean dog which the Havana Silk Dog Association undertook to “recreate” and preserve, using a combination of 21st century genetic testing and basic animal husbandry practices. (Retrospectively, choosing the name Havana Silk Dog was, for lack of a better word... OK... stupid, given the amount of confusion it has engendered. )
It is perhaps because of the "variety of antecedents" that there have always been two very distinct phenotypes within the modern Havanese breed, both in the US and in Cuba, despite the limited size of the breed's gene pool at times. One phenotype is defined by the presence of the recently identified FGF4 retrogene mutation associated with short-legged dwarfism in 19 breeds (including the AKC Havanese), while the other is defined by its absence. It's that simple.
The following photos depict two Havanese from the 1980s, shortly after the breed was introduced to the US. It should be pretty obvious to the casual observer that beyond the coat differences, one dog is short-legged with sturdy bone, while the other -- clearly lacking a copy of the FGF4 mutation -- has much longer legs with much finer bone.
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Here's what was happening, genetically:
Although in most short-legged breeds all the dogs tested carried two copies of the dominant FGF4 retrogene mutation, some Havanese were found to carry only a single copy. If bred together, these "heterozygotes" would produce a percentage of recessive long-legged offspring like the one pictured on the left. It's basic Medelian genetics. Anyone wishing to read more about this fascinating study can access the research paper by clicking the following link:
In spite of the fact that the accepted definition of a breed requires that its members share a common phenotype (or characterized appearance), this disparity continued for decades, with no real agreement among Havanese breeders as to which phenotype was preferred, much less actually correct.
By 1998, when I attended my first Havanese National Specialty -- after breeding and exhibiting AKC Sporting dogs over the better part of 25 years-- what I saw was like nothing I had ever experienced in the world of purebred dogs. I mean, it looked for all the world like there were two different breeds sharing the same name and competing in the same ring! The majority were short-legged, heavy-boned dogs, while the rest were longer legged and weighed considerably less for their height. Some had fluffy double coats, while others had flat silky coats.
I actually took the following photograph there, which I think pretty well captured the truly mind-boggling disparity displayed at that most memorable event:
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Nine years after this picture was taken, the black dog with the flat silky coat, long legs, elegant neck and crozier tail pictured above, along with others of similiar "make and shape" carefully selected from the American, Eastern European and Cuban gene pools, became the foundation stock for the Havana Silk Dog breed.
Based upon all the documented historical and DNA evidence available, it appears fairly certain that these dogs (who do not display the FGF4 mutation responsible for short legs) represent the phenotype of the earlier dog of the Caribbean region, which existed long before the development of the Havanese as a breed. And because this phenotype is actually recessive to the short-legged phenotype, it took very few generations for the Havana Silk to breed true.
Politics, histrionics, and emotional rhetoric aside, that's pretty much all that happened.
The Silk breed now boasts a Registry of nearly a thousand dogs all sharing a common phenotype, as well as its own active National Parent Club with over 300 members. It maintains its own database with both OFA and CERF for purposes of health-screening, and has its own Donor-Advised Fund with AKC/CHF. And based on DNA analysis, the Havana Silk Dog, at this point, is already genetically different from the AKC Havanese. Its studbook is now closed, and no further dual registration nor interbreeding with the Havanese is allowed.
Bottom line is this: the Havanese and the Havana Silk dogs are now two different breeds.
As anyone can see, they LOOK very different. They breed to different standards.
They have different DNA. They have different names.
A Havanese breeder telling potential puppy buyers "our Havanese are also Havana Silk Dogs" might as well tell puppy buyers "Our Havanese are also Beagles. "
If people like the look of the Havanese, they'll buy a Havanese. If they prefer the look of the Havana Silk Dog, they'll buy a Silk. But telling people that they are the same breed is simply not true. And at this point it's just plain silly.
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According to my watch the time is now,
the past is dead and gone.
Don't try to shake it, just nod your head-
Breathe in, breathe out, move on.
-Jimmy Buffett
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copyright 2011 Bydand Havana Silk Dogs
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