Breeding smooth chows
I like to tell you about our experience with breeding smooth chow-chows.We have had chow-chows
since the 1970's, at first the rough ones and later in 1986 we got our first smooth from the Tanlap
Kennel in UK. - CH. Tanlap Sleek Tinka.After our first smooth there came a second and third, with the
third one - a black smooth bitch fom Norway - Mai-Ko-Chow's Lobke - we started breeding. At that
time in the Netherlands there where proximal 20 smooth chow-chows. As we could hardly find books
about the chows in general, there was nothing at all about the smooth; however we did have Mrs.
Chr. A. Veldhuis. This lady taught us a lot about chows in general and the smooth in particular.
Having known them way back from China, she was one of the last to get a Penhow smooth chow-
chow. About the inherited of the smooth gene she always said, the Penhow smooth was always
dominate, the later smooth has a different way of inheriting the smooth Gene.
As we make plans to breed with the smooth, there was no doubt in our minds to try to find a smooth
dog At this time I had not heard the unidentified rumour that one cannot breed a smooth to a
smooth.
Well we found a young English dog and the results was a litter of 6 smooth pups, At this stage we
heard the rumour that one must never ever breed a smooth x smooth.
Why? Well it seems that it had an effect on the boning and health as every believes.
I for myself tried to find out how that story started but till to day now one can tell me but it always
come out now and again.
We did not listen to those rumours and our next litter was again a smooth x smooth breeding, this
time 6 smooth boys and 1 rough girl. The rough was a real rough coat and the smooth where all real
smooths and not the in- between coats.
After our fifth litter we had to go to a rough dog otherwise the lines got to close and as we did not
have enough smooth dogs.
This litter contains 3 smooths and 2 rough ones, again the smooths were very smooth and the rough
ones very rough.
A grandmother (S) x grandson (S) combination gives us 1 smooth and 2 rough ones.
The smooth was this time an intermediary, the rough ones were real rough ones.
6 Smooth
pups
Brosscroft Harvy Pooka
At that point there were still not enough smooth dogs and the ones there where are not of our
liking, so we did try again an nephew (R) x niece (S) combination with as results one rough dog and
two smooth bitches, one of these bitches had a very smooth coat you can call that coat velvet.
Searching abroad we find a dog of our liking in Denmark, a rough one from the Brosscroft Kennel and
he had smooth lines in his pedigree. With two of our smooth bitches he gives us 5 really good
smooth ones and 3 really good rough ones. Than we decided we want to consolidate the smooth
Gene in our lines and make several nephews and niece's combinations, in the first three litters there
was every time one rough pup in it. For the bitches out of these combinations we found smooth
dogs, one with a slight longer coat than the other one. In the litter of the dog - Molboredens smooth
Guldbaer - with a little more coat length there was again a rough pup, 2 pups with an intermediary
coat length and 2 with a very short coat length. Then with the dog - Bidachows Smooth Thunder
Boy - with the short smooth coat, gave us litters with one rough with a shorter coat and all the
others where smooth ones. The coats of the smooth became shorter and shorter( max 2cm on the
back/ neckline ,tail and trousers are longer) but we still not have a homozygote smooth. Than we
mated our 5th generation smooth bitch - Ninjah van Juttersburch - , with the very smooth coat, to a
3rd generation smooth dog and we got a litter of six smoothes, but one litter can't tell you anything.
Her sister - Lobke van Juttersburch - gives rough and smooth in one litter even when the father is a
smooth one, so we have to wait. Ninjah's next litter with a rough dog from half smooth lines gave us
again a whole litter of smoothes, when I say smooth I mean smooth with a very short coat length.
One of her daughters - Silke - out of her first litter we mated with a smooth dog and the results was
only smooth pups.
We now have bred a 7th generation smooth pup true to the mother line and we are still learning
about the variety. There is however one thing we know for sure now, breeding only smooth with
smooth doesn't infect the boning and health. The length of the coat is shorter than the smooths we
started with, but still not every smooth has that real smooth coat - that feels likes velvet. We notice
that by several smooths during the first 3 years the smooth coat becomes shorter and shorter after
the seasonal change of coat. There is also no reason why one must not make a rough x smooth
combination. Do so, but sometimes there can be one that brings in the in-between coats again.
There is one thing that disturbed me to day in a lot of smooth chows, - this is the very heavy
overdone heads with too much wrinkles, a coat that is to long for a real smooth. Well time will tell if
being popular means the end of the real smooth coated chow-chow with the open face and
expression.
note :After writing this article for the official Journal of the Chow Chow Club of Gauteng, South
Africa, Ninjah got her third litter and again all very smooth, so after having 17 pups only smooth we
can say that she is a real Homozygote.
CH. Tanlap Sleek Tinka
Mai-Ko-Chows Lobke
Lobke van Juttersburch
CH. Molboredens Smooth Guldbaer
Ninjah van Juttersburch
Cuno van Juttersburch
Silke van Juttersburch
Bidachows Smooth Thunder Boy
