University of Helsinki Research: Chihuahua skulls have a supposedly harmless feature that revealed potentially worrying information

Helsinki|university of Helsinki

Vet Anna-Mariam Kivirannan the dissertation provided new insights into the openings of the skulls of chihuahua dogs that were previously considered harmless.

The openings are the non-ossified areas at the end, at the seam points of the skull bones. Even in human babies, there are usually bone-free spots away that allow the brain to grow rapidly. The open parts of the head require gentle treatment.

Kiviranta’s dissertation concludes that the openings in the skull of chihuahuas do not in themselves cause the symptoms of the disease in dogs, but their more abundant occurrence in symptomatic or abnormally structured chihuahuas challenges the notion of their harmlessness.

Structural abnormalities could mean bad news for the dog family. According to the study, the openings may be associated with spinal cord disease. Spinal cord disease, or syringomyelia, can cause pain, limb weakness, and coordination problems in a pet.

Kiviranta hopes the University of Helsinki magazine in the articlethat the Doctoral Research would help to identify malformations in dogs even earlier, even if they are not yet symptomatic.

“Thus, healthy individuals could be used for breeding,” he notes.

Kiviranta works in the neurology outpatient clinic of the University Animal Hospital as a patient and as a clinical teacher.

The dissertation was supervised by an assistant professor Tarja Pääkkönen From the University of Helsinki and Professor Clare Rusbridge From the University of Surrey, UK.

Correction on April 19 at 3:42 pm: Information about the study was published in an article in the University Journal, not in a university bulletin.