The decision has been made! You have talked about it for a long time as a family and are finally “ready to welcome a Chihuahua puppy into your life” knowing that you will have to care for it “for the duration of its life.”
Now all you have to do is search for and choose your puppy. But what are the parameters that are good to know to make the right choice?
THE PRICE
One only has to go browsing through the various for-sale ads that populate the Web to realize the huge differences in price: ranging from €300 from private individuals for puppies without pedigrees, to €1,200/1,500 from breeders. Let us see together what this difference depends on:
- First of all, it is good to clarify that not only can dogs without pedigrees not be defined as purebred, but that it is even illegal to sell them for money (see Legislative Decree No. 529 of Dec. 30, 92)
- If we consider that the Enci institutional fee, for the issuance of the pedigree certificate (pedigree), is €20 per registered puppy, it seems obvious that it cannot be the cost of the pedigree that makes the price difference!
- Preventive examinations performed on the parents, are costly but essential to determine matings between healthy individuals and limit the possibility that they, may transmit hereditary diseases to their offspring. In Chihuahuas, for example, the following are common: patella dysplasia (patella) and although less frequent, PRA (progressive retinal atrophy).
THE PEDIGREE
- Contrary to what many people believe, pedigree is not snobbery indispensable only to dog show-goers; on the contrary, it is the dog’s ID and tells us all about the genealogical selection made (morphology, genetics and charactericity of ancestors) and on the titles attained, as well as certifying that all screening examinations for diseases to which the breed is most predisposed have been performed.
Next week we will address the article, “Where to buy and where not to buy a Chihuahua.”
Given the importance and countless notions to be explored, we will address this topic in detail in the article to be released next week. Don’t miss it!
Carla Beard