Although a recreation of original Havana Silk Dog popular in the eighteenth century, the Havana Silk is in many exciting ways the quintessential twenty-first century purebred dog.
While eighteenth century breeders had to rely on the time-honored but less-than-ideal "hit or miss" method for producing dogs of proper breed type, today's breeders now have the advantage of modern molecular genetics and the gene testing it has spawned to produce consistant breed type without sacrificing soundness or health, and Silk breeders as a group are poised to take full advantage of it.
A perfect example of this is the new pair of "coat gene" tests now available to Silks from VetGen, one of the nation's leaders in canine genetic testing. (And the Bydand crew, we are happy to announce, contributed a lot of DNA toward the development of these tests!)
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The first coat gene test developed was for the satin coat. From its earliest beginnings, there has been a second coat in this breed, also seen in Cuba. Rather than the typical "dustmop" drop coat, occasionally a puppy will appear with a coat that looks more like a spaniel. The pups displaying it are otherwise healthy and sound, although rather than "shedding into their coats" like a dropcoated Silk, they do tend to shed onto the furniture like a "normal" dog!
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The inability to control the appearance of this coat variation has frustrated breeders over the years. Although those who consider themselves lucky enough to own one wouldn't trade it for a dropcoated Silk in a thousand years (primarily because they prefer the clean face and feet and the lack of grooming required!) they are generally placed as pets, and because not too many potential owners even know they even exist, they tend to be hard to find homes for. When a male produced one, many breeders (and often his owners) would hesitate to use him as a sire because they simply had no idea if their bitch was also carrying the gene. (As Keebler is one of those dogs, we have first-hand experience with this. In fact, the pretty satin pup pictured above is a Keebler son!)
This was NOT a good situation for a breed with a gene pool as small as ours - in order to maintain the genetic diversity we need to maintain good health, excluding sound, health-tested males because of fear of producing a coat variation that is simply hard to sell is hardly in the best long-term interest of the breed!
Luckily, that untenable situation ended forever in October of 2009 when VetGen (with the help of Keebler's DNA!) developed an inexpensive gene test for the "head furnishings" gene. Now breeders can send in a simple cheek swab and know before they plan a breeding whether or not their dog is carrying the gene for the satin coat. If he or she is, and the breeder does not wish to produce any satin coated pups, simply breeding to a dog who is not carrying the gene will guarantee no satin pups will be produced in the resulting litter. On the other hand, if the breeder wants to breed to a particular dog because they feel that he best complements their bitch, and both dogs are carrying the satin gene, they are still free to do so- they just won't be surprised if the litter contains a satin or two.
Isn't science great???????
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