Desdemona is part of new breed of dogs, the American hairless terrier. The dogs have no eyelashes, but they do have whiskers. The main selling point for the dogs is that people with allergies can own them. rdt View More Images from this story Visit the Photo Place

Pam Voit breeds hairless dogs for people who are allergic to dogs.

Pam Voit breeds hairless dogs for people who are allergic to dogs.

By AMY FLOWERS UMBLE

Date published: 1/22/2003

IT ALL STARTED with an allergy.

Pam Voit loved dogs, and she used to raise Great Danes.

"Then one day I was wondering why I could not breathe at all," she said.

The Spotsylvania resident and her husband had developed an allergy to the dogs they bred.

Voit loved dogs, and she didn't want to give them up. But she liked breathing more.

So she looked for a compromise. She decided to raise hairless dogs.

The first breed Voit tried was the Chinese crested. But she didn't really enjoy them.

One day while looking in a book about Chinese cresteds, Voit saw a picture of a relatively new breed--the American hairless terrier.

And she fell in love.

She got in touch with the founder of the breed, Edwin Scott, in Louisiana and began breeding her own dogs soon after.

Voit currently has eight American hairless terriers for breeding and a brand-new litter of puppies.

She sells the puppies to people as far away as Canada, and she gets excited about the service her dogs provide--letting people with severe allergies own dogs.

Voit empathizes with the people who come to her house checking to see whether they are allergic to her dogs. She lets them come in and see how they react to the dogs.

Sometimes people cry. They're so happy to be able to have a dog for the first time in their lives.

She knows what it's like to not be able to have dogs. Not only did she have to give up her Great Danes as an adult, but as a child she couldn't have a dog because her brother had asthma.

Part of her passion for dogs comes from not having one as a child, and Voit wants to give other children the opportunity to have a dog.

"I just think it's important for children to have dogs. It gives them something to love other than themselves," she said. "It gives them something to take care of and be best buddies with, and I think that's so important for kids."

The breed has a bevy of other benefits, according to Voit. The dogs are cleaner than other breeds and they have fewer fleas and ticks. Also, because they don't have hair they don't shed.

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Date published: 1/22/2003