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Originally Posted by navillusc  I saw there apparently is a recessive gene for short hair in the Havanese, but since the Yorkshire Terrier has a rather unique gene for silk hair, is it not possible that the Havanese has a unique recessive gene for short hair? However, from reading those articles, it appears that the Havanese breeders were surprised by the appearance of short hair in their pups, which presents some possible questions as well.
But...
Did I miss the post and/or article that states that there definitely exists in the Yorkshire Terrier breed a recessive gene for short hair that might have been expressed in Minnie?
I ask because this is the first mention I have ever heard of a short hair (recessive) Yorkshire Terrier, and considering that this forum has had several recent mentions of "blue born" Yorkies...a recessive attribute, coupled with all the mentions of Yorkshire Terriers rescued from BYB's, puppy mills, pet stores, and animal center/rescue organizations...and all the other "badly bred" Yorkies, I must admit I find it surprising that this is the first mention of a "short hair (recessive) Yorkie" outside the hair growth patterns of the "red legged" Yorkie. Would that not be a fairly 'monumental' discovery? |
All breeds of dogs are still dogs, and carry the same genetic loci (genes, or protein-coding DNA sequences at specific locations on the chromosomes). What makes each breed unique is the differences in DNA sequence at these genetic loci. So Yorkies definitely carry the dominant long hair allele at the Havanese genetic locus. All it would take to get a recessive short-haired Yorkie is a mutation of the Havanese gene from dominant long-hair to recessive short-hair, for that mutation to be passed on to offspring, who are then carriers, and then to breed a carrier with another carrier so you get a homozygous (two copies of the mutant gene) short-haired Yorkie. I don't know whether such a discovery would be "monumental"--I think that breeders would be upset and try to eliminate it from their breeding stock. It may even have already taken place. There are other Yorkietalk threads on short hair Yorkies where people have said they have seen Yorkies that look like regular Yorkies except for having short hair. I don't know whether this is what happened in Minnie's case--the only way to find out would be by genetic testing. There is supposedly a genetic test for the Havanese short hair mutant gene, but I don't know how good the test is. I've read of the gene being called the "furnishings" gene, or "RSPO2" gene, but that information was in an informal article, not a research article, so I don't know how accurate that information is.