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Great pics Lowenhart. :hug:

This could be a silly question, but does the smoochen coat shed more than a regular lowchen coat? To a layperson it looks more like a short coated breed that may drop hair a lot.

I don't guarantee the shedding level of Smoochen :eek: I guess they shed as much as any 'feathered' spaniel type coat.

I've found the amount of hair shed varies from Lowchen to Lowchen, I still end up going to work with hair on me from my non-shedding dogs. :)

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So then any litter bred today could have the chance of Smoochens?

Yes there is always a chance of Smoochen in any given litter, you can't guarantee that at some point a Smoochen will not pop up. As I said my male sired 38 pups, it was his 39th that was smooth. The dam of the litter was not related to him in recent generations (5 or 6).

You can try to do the math, factor in if either parent has produced one before or has a sibling that is smooth. You can count the number of instances of smoochen in the pedigree, such as the old Tilcha bitch in Australian lines. It's hard as a lot of breeders hide their smooth pups. There is a lot of suspicion of wrong doing, "suspect breeding" and so forth and last year someone contacted me as the breed club were trying to remove the parents of a smooth pup from the stud book (read: removal from the main register) because these dogs had produced a single smooth puppy. :laugh: It may be the only smooth pup they ever produce. It's not a terrible affliction to the pup, there are no real negatives.

I personally avoid repeating litters that produce smooth pups and avoid breeding 2 known producers of smoochen together. Smoochen are put on limited register and live as someone's pet. Same Lowchen personality without the grooming needs.

edit to make more sense.

Edited by Lowenhart
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how do you register a Smoochen, do you add anything on the paperwork when regsitering or are they just registered as per normal Lowchen?

From you eperience what would be the ideal price range for a pet/show lowchen?

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how do you register a Smoochen, do you add anything on the paperwork when regsitering or are they just registered as per normal Lowchen?

From you eperience what would be the ideal price range for a pet/show lowchen?

Smooth coated Lowchen are purebred Lowchen with incorrect coat so they are registered as any other Lowchen is.

Ideal price range? That is something that is very much up to the breeder. I have no idea what other breeders charge, I have never purchased a Lowchen from an Australian breeder.

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Lowenhart are the smooth Lowchen smaller than the coateds or is that photo a bit of an illusion?

In this case they were, but not in every case. Lowchen can be 10-13 inches at the shoulder with plenty that are shown/bred who are oversize so you can see an even larger spectrum of size. I have had regularly coated littermates end up where one is 29cm and another 33cm. Their 3/4 sister is 26.5 cm. All allowable in the size range for the breed, all very closely related.

An example are our "Ewok" Girls:

WikketAndLatara.jpg

at 8 weeks

scruffies9mth.jpg

at 9 months, one is obviously taller than the other :heart:

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  • 3 weeks later...
Is their bone structure related to height? I have seen some lowchen are much more 'fine-boned' and others more 'robust'.

Sorry I have taken so long to answer this.

No bone structure is not directly related to height. You can have both fine & heavy dogs of all sizes. Size of bone is related to the family, so those of fine bone bred to fine bone tend to produce more fine bone.

There is also dwarfism in the breed, which causes shortened thick bowed legs in front and shortened thick legs in rear. This makes some small dogs look more hefty and robust.

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Is their bone structure related to height? I have seen some lowchen are much more 'fine-boned' and others more 'robust'.

Sorry I have taken so long to answer this.

No bone structure is not directly related to height. You can have both fine & heavy dogs of all sizes. Size of bone is related to the family, so those of fine bone bred to fine bone tend to produce more fine bone.

There is also dwarfism in the breed, which causes shortened thick bowed legs in front and shortened thick legs in rear. This makes some small dogs look more hefty and robust.

Thanks :cry:

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  • 1 month later...

Is anyone using Lowchens in Australia in agility, are any lines better than others for jumping?

The Lowchen world health website is fantastic, what can be done in testing parents for a healhy pup? Presume PRA in parents? anything else?

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Is anyone using Lowchens in Australia in agility, are any lines better than others for jumping?

The Lowchen world health website is fantastic, what can be done in testing parents for a healhy pup? Presume PRA in parents? anything else?

I do not believe anyone is currently trialing Lowchen in agility in Australia. I think there is 1 Lowchen with agility titles in Australia. Some, like myself, have gone through and done the training but not titled a dog. I've even trialed twice with a Lowchen but she was dq'd both times. :)

If you are serious about agility then I would suggesting selecting on individual dogs temperaments and the soundness of the parents.

Patella Luxation is the most widespread health problem, followed probably by cataracts. So parents should have had their knees & eyes checked and the pup should also have had a preliminary knee check.

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Any idea on how common the PL is in the Lowchens and the is it usually mild, severe or both? Just thinking of the jumping.

I unfortunately can't give you the occurance rate, there aren't any statistical records. Nor is there a proper grading system in Australia. All I have is anecdotal and LowchenWorld.com.

As I said previously you have to select the dog most suitable in temperament from the soundest parents. I don't believe that every Lowchen born is a suitable candidate for Agility, I've trained 3 of my own and only 1 of those was particularly interested (he really LOVED it, but I never got to trialling stage). I tried that 1 dog who loved Agility with Flyball but he just wasn't ball orientated. I've had others though who are ball nuts and if I could have cloned myself I would have pursued flyball with them.

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Do other countries have a scoring or averaging on PL. Could Australia use the country with the best scoring to use as a bases for ours?

There is the International grading system (0:0 for no luxation either knee, 0:1 and so on) and the OFA (US) one which gives "Clear". Those are the 2 I know but when I took my dogs in for grading by a orthapedic specialist, they said they had no system here, no forms and could only write a general letter. I got the verbal gradings though (all were 0:0) . AVA just doesn't have system in place.

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