Also known as the Longcoat Chihuahua, or the Chihuahua Langhaar, this is to many people merely a variant of the typical, short-haired Chihuahua, differing only in coat length. To others it is a separate breed.
Those who support the idea that this is a distinct type do so because they believe that it is the result of one or more matings with other breeds. In other words, it was not merely a Chihuahua with a long-hair gene, but a new type of lapdog created by crossing the Chihuahua with other small companion breeds. These crossings are said to have occurred in the United States in the early part of the 20th century, only a few decades after the first Smooth-coated Chihuahuas had been brought back from Mexico as exotic pets.
The Pomeranian is the favourite candidate as the most important of the other foundation breeds, but the Papillon and the (early type of) Pekingese were also said to have been used on a number of occasions. A careful comparison of the smooth-haired and the longhaired versions of the Chihuahua does show slight differences that go beyond hair length.
In 1952 the Longcoat Chihuahua Club of America was founded and treated this dog as a separate entity. Interbreeding between the short- and the long-haired forms was no longer permitted.
The earliest record of a Long-haired Chihuahua in Mexico dates from as recently as 1959, and that dog was owned by a German and had been imported from the United States. As late as 1965 there were only 12 registered in Mexico, compared with huge numbers in the United States, supporting the view that this type of Chihuahua is not an early local variant of the smooth-coated dog, as some have claimed.
Leave a Reply