When I was growing up, it was common knowlegde that if you had a person in your family who developed asthma, you got a chihuahua. For some unknown reason, it helped in controlling the occurance of attacks and the severity. Has anyone else ever heard of this, and why would it work?
I had a younger cousin that developed asthma and my aunt got a tiny dog and it worked, so i have first had knowlegde of this working. Also there were other people I knew that did this, so I am not making this up. I saw it work. Any ideas?
I heard chihuahuas were being implemented in vBulletin 3.0.
Until then, you may want to try General Questions.
Moving this thread to the GQ forum.
You mean to replace the hamsters?
Perhaps the phenomenon of seeing one’s chihuahua gasp and choke and cough and wheeze with silly-dog excitement when you first come in the door causes your asthma to give up in shame at being unable to generate a comparable spectacle in its human victim?
My younger brother had (has) asthma and my parents bought a chihuahua for him for that reason. Two actually. The first one was dumber than a brick and got itself run over.
Never noticed that it made a lick of difference, so after the second one they gave up.
Ymmv, of course.
My Dad had asthma (as do I) and my Grandparents bought him a Chihuahua because he wanted a dog, and their Dr. told them that a Chihuahua would be the best one to get as not to aggravate his asthma
BTW that was in the 1950s.
Chihuahuas shed. Granted, the volume of fur and dander they shed is nothing compared to a Golden Retriever, but still …
There is no such thing as a truly hypo-allergenic dog. Dogs that are relatively safe for people with asthma and dog dander allergies include:
[ul]
[li]Poodle[/li][li]Biscon Frise[/li][li]Schnauzer[/li][li]Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier[/li][li]Kerry Blue Terrier[/li][li]Portuguese Water Dog *[/li][li]Spanish Water Dog **[/li][li]Lagotto Romagnolo ***[/li][li]Irish Water Spaniel[/li][li]Polish Lowland Sheepdog[/li][li]Barbet[/li][/ul]
- I can say from personal experience that black and brown PWDs hardly shed. White and white/black parti PWDs have finer hair, which isn’t as tight in the follicle as with the black Porties. Thus, they shed a wee bit.
** Spanish Water Dogs are essentially Rasta Porties.
*** Lagottos are pretty much Miniature Porties.
My respiratory therapist taught me that hair, dander, and saliva from dogs are all potential asthma triggers. Even hairless dogs have dander and saliva. Cats are somewhat more likely to be triggers than dogs. He taught me to keep a journal to figure out what my triggers. He taught me that asthma has two phases, inflammation and bronchial spasms. If you routinely medicate for the inflammation, then a trigger will only smack you with the spasms. That way, the attack is (a) not as dangerous, and (b) treatable with quick rescue drugs such as albuterol. The drugs for inflammation are not quick, and aren’t much help once an attack is under way.
Well i am happy to know i am not the only person that ever heard of this happening. I saw it work with my cousin. The dog did not exhibit symtoms of the asthma, but still was a disgusting little critter. I tend to think the presence of this dog soothed my cousin in some way and helped prevent the attacks. I got no other explanation for it.