Curiosity

[KodaBear2011]

I adopted my chow chow ( more like fostered/fell in love with) two years ago.
Her parents are both (as far as I know) pure bred red chow. She has the coat, the straight back legs, black tounge and eyes, Curled tail (but her tail doesn't always stay curled up on her back even when she's playing with my other dog so I know she's not stressed out or scared.) Also she has a longer muzzle than most chows I've seen. Both her parents had the flatter face but hers is longer
She is my first chow, even after two years I'm still learning about the breed.

I've attached pictures of KodaBear to get a better opinion on her.

My question is
Do you think she's purebred?
She has certain qualitys that make me wonder
-Longer Muzzle
-tail not curling all the time

[Rory's Dad]

I didnt see the photos, but know that Chows come in many varieties. At the base level, you have smooth or rough coats. Think short or long hair for lack of better descriptions. Next up, you can have stocky or athletic types. Seems pretty self explanatory, but taller/leaner dogs are the atheletic builds and the football player types are the stocky. Now we move onto the facial features. Purebred chows certainly can have long, thin snouts. That is called Open Face. Shorter muzzles with scrunchy type faces are Closed.

Earlier Chows are most likely of the athletic variety with narrower snouts. Depending on where you reside, trends among current chow types differ.

In the US, shorter rough chows with closed faces are currently in favor. I happen to own 2, both reds. That doesnt mean altheletic chows with open features are any less Chow, and in fact are more popular in other parts of the world. Rough vs Smooth is a similar debate, but i do think the longer hair is favored more regardless of region. Still, some folks love the Smooths.

Hope that helps...at least a bit.

[Rory's Dad]

Oh, and the tail curl...that can be a sign of confidence for the dog. Or it could just be laziness. Like a person smiling, it takes a certain number of muscles to hold that tail high. Our female (10 months) took some work to get her convinced this was a natural position for her tail. At every opportunity we would prompt her tail into a curl and speak to her about 'tail up'. She got it and its not a problem anymore. For more extreme cases you could actually place a towel over his tail and backside to encourage proper position.

[KodaBear2011]

I guess the picture didn't load, but that did help a lot.
She most definitely is a very athletic chow she give my vizsla a run for his money when we take him out pointing