IMPORTANT: All of the following copyrighted material is excerpted from the upcoming book "Havana Silk" by Diane Klumb, and may only be reproduced with written permission from the author for educational purposes only.

The Mysterious "Arizona Conundrum" Revealed! 

Haven't you wondered how a breed that's supposed to be over three hundred years old can contain dogs that look like two entirely different breeds ?
You're not alone.
Nearly everyone, from prospective pet owners to frustrated AKC judges, realizes that there are two very distinctive phenotypes within the Havanese breed in both the US and Europe. Not just “styles”, or even “types”, but what actually appears to be two entirely different BREEDS registered by AKC under a single name.

The x-rays in the left column below are all AKC-registered Havanese.
So are the ones on the right.

This makes little sense in a breed with a famously small gene pool.
It is an indisputable fact that every single dog in the HCA Registry that was accepted into the AKC Miscellaneous Class in 1996 was descended from only eight dogs assembled between 1974 and 1979, and three of those eight were litter sisters!
Given those facts, there should logically be little diversity at all, except possibly for minor variations in style.
 
Yet the fact remains that the Havanese, after 28 years as a registered breed in the US, still looks like two different breeds entirely, with significant differences in coat, size, proportion, skeletal structure, substance, eye shape, topline, ear size, ear set, tail set, tail carriage, and muzzle length.
 
These differences are far greater than many of those which distinguish most of the historically-related but individually registered AKC breeds such as the Cavalier King Charles and English Toy Spaniels, the English Cocker Spaniel and his American cousin the Cocker Spaniel, the Smooth and Wire Fox Terriers, the Cardigan and Pembroke Welsh Corgis, or the Norwich and Norfolk Terriers.

The reason is simple- the AKC Havanese, although surely descended in part from the dogs of Cuba, is not the same breed at all, but is rather an entirely American breed, created sometime in the 1970s in the United States.
 
It is generally accepted that the Havanese currently registered in the US are descended from 3 separate gene pools:
·        the 11 dogs that Mrs. Dorothy Goodale assembled in Colorado between 1975 and 1979 when she wrote the first standard for the Havanese, formed the Havanese Club of America, and established the HCA Registry;
·        the 8 “Russian” dogs which ended up in Hungary (via the Soviet Union )from dogs brought out of Cuba in the 1980s and which were registered with the Hungarian MET (and FCI) as Bichon Havanais;
·        and most recently dogs from Cuba itself (via Europe and Canada) registered in the post-revolutionary Cuban stud book as Bichon Habanero.  
 
This is a mistake. In fact, FOUR separate and distinct gene pools have contributed to the modern Havanese breed, not three.

A little casual research reveals that during the 1970s, American dog magazines such as Dog World occasionally contained ads for "Toy Havanese" in the Rare Breeds  sections of the classifieds, in states as diverse as TN and AZ.

In late 1974, Mrs. Dorothy Goodale of Montrose, Colorado - a breeder of Soft-Coated Wheaten Terriers, Pulik, and Lowchen (under the "Little Lion" prefix), and Irish Wolfhounds and Bolognese (under the "Berdot" prefix), as well as a purveyer of potpourri, according to her own ads in dog publications of the time-  purchased 6 of these Toy Havanese from the SunHaven Kennels in Yuma, Arizona. This kindred consisted of a chocolate bitch named Rags Girl, four black bitch puppies out of Rags Girl whelped Oct.12, 1974, and a silver male sired by a Rags Girl daughter. Only three of the four black bitches and the male produced offspring appearing in the AKC Havanese Foundation Stock pedigrees.

These dogs are referred to as the Arizona kindred in HEART’s health research project at TAMU for the simple reason that they were purchased in Arizona. Mrs Goodale was told that these dogs represented the breeding stock of the Fantasio and Perez families.
Their HCA pedigrees reveal three generations of SunHaven breeding.
 
The next five (four of whose offspring show up in AKC Havanese Foundation Stock pedigrees) were reportedly purchased by Mrs Goodale in 1979 from a Cuban expatriate named Ezekial Barba from Costa Rica  relocating to Galveston, TX and desiring to sell some breeding stock, consisting of four bitches and a dog.
For the purposes of the TAMU health research study, these dogs are referred to as the Costa Rican kindred, since that’s where they came from. Their accompanying pedigrees reveal them to have been from a single linebred strain with lovely Spanish names but no kennel prefixes.
 
For the better part of the next twenty years, until the dogs from the Russian and Cuban gene pools entered the mix, those 8 dogs, representing two different family groups, comprised the entire genetic foundation for the Havanese breed in the US.
 
Unfortunately, very little photographic evidence of those 8 original dogs exists. Had AKC been aware of any of this before accepting the breed into the Miscellaneous Class in 1996- which they in fact were not- the odds are pretty good the breed would not have been accepted at all at that point in time, as AKC defines "breed" as a domestic race of dogs (selected and mainatained by humans)  with a common gene pool and a characterized appearance (phenotype) and function.
 Efforts made over the past twenty years to locate photographs of the original 8 dogs, several of whom were later sold to other breeders, have been unfortunately unsuccessful.
 
Quite a bit, however, can be ascertained from photos of the inbred descendents of each kindred, and it is here that the Arizona Conundrum reveals itself.

The early dogs inbred off the Costa Rican kindred were fairly small, light-boned, slightly longer than tall and straight-legged, with a characteristic rise to the topline, rounded croups and crozier tails. They had soft, wavy coats and almond-shaped eyes. These dogs closely resembled the dogs later imported from Cuba and Hungary in the 1990s in general shape and make.

The early dogs inbred off the AZ kindred, on the other hand, were invariably of a typically chondrodysplastic phenotype - heavier-bodied and large-headed, with shorter, often bowed legs, probably resembling an ungroomed Dandie Dinmont Terrier more than any other breed. Their eyes were large and round, their tails were set on high and carried curled on the back, and their coats were often curly and double-coated, with coarser guard hair and a cottony undercoat. Some were long-backed while others were both short-legged and short-backed, rather like a Scottie. (This chondrodysplastic phenotype, it should be noted, did not exist among the dogs brought out of Russia into Hungary  in the late 1980s nor in their descendents, or among the dogs registered in the Cuban stud book, although no one in the US or Western Europe was aware of that until decades later.)
 A little casual research reveals that during the 1970s, American dog magazines such as Dog World occasionally contained ads for "Toy Havanese" in the Rare Breeds  sections of the classifieds, in states as diverse as TN and AZ.

In late 1974, Mrs. Dorothy Goodale of Montrose, Colorado - a breeder of Soft-Coated Wheaten Terriers, Pulik, and Lowchen (under the "Little Lion" prefix), and Irish Wolfhounds and Bolognese (under the "Berdot" prefix), as well as a purveyer of potpourri, according to her own ads in dog publications of the time-  purchased 6 of these Toy Havanese from the SunHaven Kennels in Yuma, Arizona. This kindred consisted of a chocolate bitch named Rags Girl, four black bitch puppies out of Rags Girl whelped Oct.12, 1974, and a silver male sired by a Rags Girl daughter. Only three of the four black bitches and the male produced offspring appearing in the AKC Havanese Foundation Stock pedigrees.

These dogs are referred to as the Arizona kindred in HEART’s health research project at TAMU for the simple reason that they were purchased in Arizona. Mrs Goodale was told that these dogs represented the breeding stock of the Fantasio and Perez families.
Their HCA pedigrees reveal three generations of SunHaven breeding.
 
The next five (four of whose offspring show up in AKC Havanese Foundation Stock pedigrees) were reportedly purchased by Mrs Goodale in 1979 from a Cuban expatriate named Ezekial Barba from Costa Rica  relocating to Galveston, TX and desiring to sell some breeding stock, consisting of four bitches and a dog.
For the purposes of the TAMU health research study, these dogs are referred to as the Costa Rican kindred, since that’s where they came from. Their accompanying pedigrees reveal them to have been from a single linebred strain with lovely Spanish names but no kennel prefixes.
 
For the better part of the next twenty years, until the dogs from the Russian and Cuban gene pools entered the mix, those 8 dogs, representing two different family groups, comprised the entire genetic foundation for the Havanese breed in the US.
 
Unfortunately, very little photographic evidence of those 8 original dogs exists. Had AKC been aware of any of this before accepting the breed into the Miscellaneous Class in 1996- which they in fact were not- the odds are pretty good the breed would not have been accepted at all at that point in time, as AKC defines "breed" as a domestic race of dogs (selected and mainatained by humans)  with a common gene pool and a characterized appearance (phenotype) and function.
 Efforts made over the past twenty years to locate photographs of the original 8 dogs, several of whom were later sold to other breeders, have been unfortunately unsuccessful.
 
Quite a bit, however, can be ascertained from photos of the inbred descendents of each kindred, and it is here that the Arizona Conundrum reveals itself.

The early dogs inbred off the Costa Rican kindred were fairly small, light-boned, slightly longer than tall and straight-legged, with a characteristic rise to the topline, rounded croups and crozier tails. They had soft, wavy coats and almond-shaped eyes. These dogs closely resembled the dogs later imported from Cuba and Hungary in the 1990s in general shape and make.

The early dogs inbred off the AZ kindred, on the other hand, were invariably of a typically chondrodysplastic phenotype - heavier-bodied and large-headed, with shorter, often bowed legs, probably resembling an ungroomed Dandie Dinmont Terrier more than any other breed. Their eyes were large and round, their tails were set on high and carried curled on the back, and their coats were often curly and double-coated, with coarser guard hair and a cottony undercoat. Some were long-backed while others were both short-legged and short-backed, rather like a Scottie. (This chondrodysplastic phenotype, it should be noted, did not exist among the dogs brought out of Russia into Hungary  in the late 1980s nor in their descendents, or among the dogs registered in the Cuban stud book, although no one in the US or Western Europe was aware of that until decades later.)

 The earliest pedigrees and HCA records also reveal that the various health issues plaguing the breed (including cataracts, osteochondrodysplasia, liver and heart abnormalities- all of which, according to research funded by HEART and CHF at Texas A&M, segregate together) first appeared in at least one of the 4 original Arizona dogs and in their immediate inbred offspring.
Although no one was aware of it at the time, the first blinding cataracts and retinal detachment  reported in the breed were found in dogs who whose pedigrees represented 84.5 %- 100% AZ breeding, and one of the original AZ foundation bitches Mrs. Goodale had purchased, and who appears in the pedigree of every AKC-registered Havanese, died at age 7 from  liver hemorrhage. (This was reported in the Winter 1982 Havanese Hotline.) In addition, many of the dogs of this phenotype were lost between the ages of 7 and 11 years to various cancers and heart disease.
 
On the other hand, the lighter-boned, longer-legged dogs from the Costa Rican kindred and their immediate inbred offspring apparently suffered none of these problems, and many of the first-and-second generation dogs inbred from this kindred lived 13-17 years.
Aware that the original gene pool was very small (but unaware of the diversity of it) this disparity caused the early owners of the dogs displaying Arizona phenotype to believe that the owners of the dogs displaying the Cuban phenotype were simply lying. The sad truth is that no one would make the connection between the two phenotypes and the serious health issues emerging until 2002.
 
The two strains were crossed repeatedly as the breed increased in numbers in the US, and by 1990, when the HCA Registry recorded a total of 1,000 Havanese, most dogs were already well over 50% Arizona breeding. This shift, which was partly geographic, was the result of a single high-volume breeder in the East, where the breed was more popular, having obtained foundation stock of primarily Arizona breeding. (The HCA standard was changed radically in 1989 –  “short-legged”, “sturdy” “coat is double”, and  “high-set tail” were added for the first time, while the word “slightly” was removed from “slightly longer than tall” – to reflect this shift toward the Arizona phenotype.)
 
The notable exceptions to the move toward the Arizona phenotype were the dogs bred by Mrs. Goodale herself. Recent pedigree analysis reveal the dogs carrying her Havana’s prefix after 1981 to be primarily Costa Rican, as were the dogs carrying the Ti-Ara’s prefix, and the phenotype of these two lines reflected that.
On the other hand, Havanese produced under the Mendoza, SRR, and Destiny prefixes were primarily Arizona phenotype, as each of these kennels had purchased dogs of 100% AZ breeding from Mrs Goodale as foundation stock, including several of the original AZ females.
 
The situation in Western Europe was similar. The first Havanese exported from the US were imported from both the Havana and SRR kennels, and ranged from 87.5% AZ breeding to 100% Costa Rican breeding. Over the years, as dogs of both phenotype continued to be imported from the US, the 1963 FCI standard was revised twice to reflect the variations being produced there, and in 1997 the words “short-legged” were added to that standard as well.
 
Unfortunately, because of the diversity in its origins, it has become all too apparent that the Havanese breed simply cannot be depended upon to "breed true”, even after over twenty years of concerted effort on the part of dedicated breeders. This phenomenon has made them frustrating to both breed and judge, and has created over twenty years of divisive animosity within the hapless Parent Club.
Dogs of pure Cuban type crossed with bitches of pure Cuban type will generally produce litters of pure Cuban type.
Likewise, dogs displaying Arizona phenotype crossed with bitches displaying Arizona phenotype will produce litters of pure Arizona phenotype.
 
Everything else is pretty much a crap shoot.

Crossing Havanese of primarily Costa Rican, Russian, or Cuban breeding displaying Cuban type with Havanese displaying the Arizona phenotype simply produces mixed litters, with some “Cuban” phenotypes and some “Arizona” phenotypes. 
(These, not surprisingly, are the same results Dr. Whitney observed in the F2 and F3 generations when he crossed various long- and short-legged breeds some 50 years earler.) 

                                 these two soaped puppies are littermates

So incredibly strong is this inclination toward reversion back to the two original phenotypes that these "unlike to unlike" breedings will also on occasion produce asymmetric animals, where one side of the dog resembles the Arizona phenotype and the other side resembles the Cuban one. (Amazingly, when these dogs develop unilateral cataracts, the cataract invariably develops on the “Arizona” side. I swear I am not making this up.) The photos below are actually of the right and left sides of THE SAME DOG.

It will also produce, somewhat surprisingly, dogs where the front end resmbles one phenotype while the back end resembles the other, producing a rise in topline far exceeding that of a normal, balanced Cuban dog with a typically short upper arm.

The utilization of tight linebreeding and exclusively like-to-like breedings by experienced breeders working within the 40%-60% range (and extensive pedigree analysis shows that is where most Havanese in the US today fall) will produce greater consistency in litters, and is less likely to result in dogs that look like they've been put together from spare parts, but because the specific combination of traits displayed by each phenotype invariably are inherited together, breeders have to first select one or the other phenotype to perpetuate to achieve consistency, furthering both the schism within the Parent Club and the appalling diversity in the show ring.
 
Some pieces of the answer to this puzzle have been provided recently by the genetics lab at TAMU. Under the direction of Keith Murphy PhD, the Havanese health research project there has determined that chondrodysplasia, cataracts, and liver and heart abnormalities all segregate together in this breed.
It was also discovered by TAMU that liver tissue from affected animals revealed differential expression of 113 separate genes when compared to normal, unaffected, unrelated dogs. Among them are genes associated with various biological processes, cholesterol absorption and transport, and skeletal development.
The entire peer-reviewed research paper, which was published in the August 2007 edition of the Journal of Heredity, is available by clicking on the following link: Hereditary Evaluation of Multiple Developmental Abnormalities in the Havanese Dog Breed .

 Now, from a genetic standpoint, 113 genes out of a possible 30,000 does not seem like an insurmountable number, and segregation analysis suggests involvement of a major locus.
From an animal husbandry standpoint, however, it’s an absolute nightmare.
 
Only the most rigid selection away from the Arizona phenotype will allow breeders to free the resulting dogs from the health issues associated with chondrodysplasia. F1 hybrid crosses between pure Cuban dogs (at this point the only gene pool carrying none of the four original AZ dogs in their pedigrees) and dogs of the Arizona phenotype have resulted in dogs of pure AZ phenotype, indicating that these are fairly dominant traits.
 
And to further complicate things for those breeders who are members of the Parent Club, after several generations, rigid selection away from the AZ phenotype to improve health has resulted in a spontaneous reversal back to elements of pure Cuban type not reflected in the current AKC Havanese standard.
 
In fact, several of these traits were not defined as an ideal in the first (1982) HCA standard for the Havanese (although they are clearly defined as an ideal in the 1963 FCI standard for the Bichon Havanais from which it was derived, as well as in the standard written in Cuba at the time the stud book was established there. ) These include a longer and more refined muzzle; a smaller, higher-set ear; an extremely dark eye; the exclusion of chocolate pigmentation, a flatter, silkier coat with significantly less wave; a dropped croup; and a crozier tail.

______________________________________________________________________________________________                              
                                     INTERNATIONAL CANINE FOUNDATION

                                                                (F.C. I.)
 

                 Secretariat General: rue Leopold II, 14-6530,  Thuin, Belgique

No 250                                                                            Le 24, Semptembre 1963
 
                                           Standard: Bichon Havanais
 
The Bichon Havanais is a dog of small size.
 
BODY: The body is a little longer than the height, the ribs rounded, the flanks well-raised, the line of the back ends with a well-descended croup.
 
LEGS: The legs are straight, quite seches (lean; literally: dry), the toes elongated and seches.
 
TAIL: The tail is carried raised in the shape of a crosier and is trimmed with long silky hair.
 
HEAD: The head is broad and flat across the skull, the front a little raised.
 
EYES: The eyes are rather large, very dark, preferably black. Eyelids almond-shaped.
 
EARS: The rather pointed ears are dropped, forming a soft fold, a little raised, directed neither toward the sides nor framing the cheeks.
 
MUZZLE: The muzzle is rather refined, the cheeks very flat, not prominent. The jaws fit well, the nose is black.
 
HAIR: The hair is quite flat, rather soft, forming light wispy waves at the ends of each strand.
 
COLOR: Rarely completely pure white, light or dark tan, havane, gray, or white largely marked with specified colors.
 
The hair on the muzzle may be slightly trimmed, but it is preferable to leave it natural.
 
WEIGHT: Not to exceed 6 kilos. (13.2 pounds)
 ____________________________________________________________________________________________
 
 This standard became the basis for the Havanese Club of America Breed Standard for the Havanese, which is presented below in its entirety. 
Especially note the following:
The description of Hair was changed from "quite flat, rather soft, forming light wispy waves at the end of each strand" to "the hair is soft, from a slight wave to curly"
The description of bone in the section on Legs was changed from "lean" to "well-boned"
The description of the tail was changed from "carried raised over the back in the shape of a crozier" to "the tail is carried curled over the back"
All of which represent major changes in essential breed type.
Under the section on Muzzle, the wording of the FCI Standard was changed from "the nose is black" to "the lips and nose are preferably black, although brown pigment is permissable on a true chocolate dog", thus making chocolate an allowable color for the first time in the breed's history.