Do you have a Chihuahua? I am a veterinarian and I will explain to you which symptoms and diseases to watch out for

Diseases of Chihuahuas do we have any? Of course yes. One of the small dogs most present in Italian homes is the Chihuahua. Small, courageous, fearless, this little companion dog is also an excellent guard dog. Nothing escapes his attention. However, even the Chihuahua is not free from diseases. There are several acquired, congenital or hereditary diseases that he can develop throughout his life.

As owners it is good to know what the most common diseases of the Chihuahuaso that you can notice from the first symptoms when a problem is about to arise.

The most common acquired diseases of Chihuahuas

As we were saying, the Chihuahua is a small dogperfect as a companion and apartment dog. As a dog breed it is very long-lived: the average lifespan of a Chihuahua is around 12-20 years. Indeed: many Chihuahuas can easily live past the age of 15-16 (if they do not, however, develop significant illnesses before that).

Despite this, this fearless dog is not exempt from being able to develop different acquired diseases. Some of the diseases we are going to look at can, in reality, have both acquired and congenital/hereditary causes. Let’s think, for example, about the rupture of the cruciate ligament. There are dogs that are born with a hereditary predisposition to have weaker ligaments. But nothing prevents a dog that is not born with this predisposition from breaking its cruciate ligament anyway due to a traumatic event.

That said, here are the acquired diseases you can most commonly see in a Chihuahua:

The most frequent congenital diseases of the Chihuahua

There is also no shortage of different ones congenital diseases (i.e. present since birth) and/or hereditary (i.e. genetically transmitted by parents, grandparents…) that the Chihuahua can manifest throughout its life. Some of these diseases will cause symptoms from the first months of life, others may manifest themselves over the course of years.

Furthermore, for some of these diseases (but not all unfortunately) they exist genetic testing which will allow you to know if that dog is healthy, sick or a carrier of the disease (in this case the dog will have the diseased genes in its DNA, but will not develop the disease). This would be important to know to exclude sick dogs and healthy carriers from breeding so as to avoid continuing to risk giving birth to sick puppies.